


A Long Way From Home

by serendipityxxi



Series: The Void [1]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Horror, M/M, Monsters, Multi, Polyamory, The Void, fixit fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:32:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 41,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8846983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: Audrey and Duke go into the Void with Nathan and everything is different.





	1. Fractured

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my betas and my writing race partners without whom this story would never have been written.

 

The last breath of air Audrey Parker takes in Haven is chilly and dry with the taste of winter in it. The sun hangs in long slants of syrupy golden light between the pine trees. Green light briefly colors Nathan’s hair and profile as he enters the Void. Audrey is scared but determined as she steps through the _thinny_ , pretty much the story of her life.

Walking through the portal doesn’t feel like anything, which is kind of disappointing.

The world they enter makes her realize how foolish it was to be disappointed by that.

It’s cold, a damp sort of chill that penetrates coat and sweater alike, and dim in a way that immediately puts all her cop senses on edge. A weak orange sun filtering through a haze of smog lights up the wasteland aptly called the Void. They are standing on the vast muddy plain of a large valley, empty but for a few dead trees. Some have fallen over to sink inch by inch into the ground, but others still hold their horrible twisted arms to the sky, as if they do not understand their leaves have long gone. In the distance mountains stand guard-- gray and barren, jagged as teeth rising from the maw of the land. Nothing moves, nothing stirs, but Audrey has the helpless feeling that all the eyes in the Void are on her and her companions.

There is nowhere to hide out here, nothing to quell that awful exposed feeling.

She takes a step forward so Duke has room to move through the thinny and the ground beneath her boots squelches unpleasantly. The air is thicker here, heavy, with a strange bitter tang that Audrey has smelled only once before: when William opened a box in a field on a sunny day and her world, which had survived so many upheavals, was finally tilted on its axis.

It smells like aether.

It’s all around them she knows though she cannot see any. She can feel it.

The rotting corpses of the dead trees are testament to it, the thick grey brown mud under her boots oozes like it.

Nathan squints up at the sun, gazing around as if trying to orient himself, while Duke curses as he steps through the portal. Audrey squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath.

“Don’t suppose either of you packed a GPS?” she jokes instead of screaming.

Nathan gives a quiet chuckle and Duke’s lips quirk.

“Not even a yellow brick road to follow, Tin Man,” he says to Nathan.

Audrey bristles at the name, though Nathan does not appear bothered. She’s still mad enough to be annoyed that Nathan is not annoyed.

“Which way?” Nathan asks, bringing them back on track. That settles her, comforts her. This is the Nathan she loves, steady and calm in a bad situation.

Audrey gets her backpack more securely settled on her shoulders and picks a direction.

“This way,” she announces like she has a clue. Neither of them calls her on it though. They simply start walking. Any direction is better than none, she guesses.

Audrey had hoped that opening the thinny on the site where the old barn had exploded meant that they might end up right in front of the remains. That hope seems laughable now as the reality of the vastness of the void confronts them. It could be anywhere. Literally anywhere. Audrey feels her heart clench for a moment with despair. She takes a firm step forward, stomping down on the feeling. Dwight will have Hailie open the thinny every six hours there's no time to waste.

“Hold on,” Duke calls, no theatrics or good humor in his voice. He sounds serious, concerned. It’s an unusual enough tone that Audrey heeds his request despite her simmering anger at him. “We need a marker so we know the right spot to wait if,” he stops himself, looking pained, “when we make it back.”

They follow their rapidly disappearing footprints back through the mud. _It would be so easy to get lost out here._ The thought sends a shiver up Audrey’s spine.

 Duke and Nathan break off a dead branch and stab it into the ground where they stepped through the thinny. They attach a red bandana from Duke's pack to it. _Humans were here_ , it proclaims.

When it’s as stable as they can make it, they leave their sad little flag and start trudging again. An eerie wind howls across the plain, empty and mournful. Audrey glances back to see the one bright spot of color in this ocean of grey whip back and forth in that chill breeze.

_It would be so easy to get lost out here._

=====

No one speaks. They just walk, each lost in their own thoughts and that is perhaps the worst of it.

The void may be empty but their connection is fragmented.

Duke and Nathan aren’t in a great place but they’re functioning, and even though she and Nathan are working as well together as ever there is a definite strain that wasn’t there before because she and Duke are frayed in a way that she never expected.

Audrey Parker had spent her whole childhood wishing for a family. By the time she was a teenager she’d convinced herself relationships were just a marketing technique; people moved or died, parents got divorced and split up whole families, people were selfish by nature.

Audrey arrived in Haven under the impression that she was fortunate to have avoided all that heartache. She came with the idea that she was fond of her boss, had a number of casual acquaintances and was perfectly content with her life the way it was. When she saw the picture from the Colorado Kid murder she was swamped with the desire to find the person in the picture and that hadn’t been out of the ordinary, she loved mysteries. She never _really_ expected to find people who belonged to her but along the way Nathan had become hers and that was both terrifying and comforting at the same time.

Duke had been hers too until he’d proven all her old expectations correct; he’d left.

After coming through for her time after time, after Harry Nix, after Colorado, after making her think maybe she'd been wrong he’d just decided to bail.

It’s not that she doesn’t understand why he left, it could practically be her Trouble, her ability to understand but damnit she _doesn’t_ _want to understand_. She didn’t run, and if she didn’t run after five hundred years of Troubles then who the hell was Duke Crocker to flake out after a couple dozen new ones.

_She’s so angry._

But this line of thinking isn’t going anywhere. Audrey adjusts her backpack again and casts her gaze around the void, the place William spent five hundred years waiting for a chance to rescue Mara. She glances up at the mountains again-- that feeling of being watched is still there. The wind howls once more, creeping down the neck of her sweater, driving fingers of cold through her coat. She hopes Nathan is warm enough.  

=====

In a weird trick of time, before they know it they’re almost at the foot of the jagged cliffs. Closer, they can see that the cliffs are more like giant spires of rock with narrow passes between. From overhead, Audrey imagines it probably looks like a maze. Audrey checks her watch and finds it’s taken almost no time to cross the wide plain that she knows should have taken them at least thirty minutes to hike. The stone looms, the pale gray of bone unearthed from shallow graves. Audrey shivers as she thinks of uncovering the Bolt Gun Killer’s burial ground. She feels a pang for Claire and another for Roslyn Toomey--they both deserved better.

No more, she tells herself as she winds her way around the first tooth of cliff. The pillar rises, sharp edged, ten feet into the air with barely two feet between it and the next.

Duke’s fingers on her arm keeps her from slipping between the two.

She glances pointedly at his hand and he drops it as if she’d burned him.

Audrey feels shame spike in her gut, but she holds her ground.

“Are you sure we have to go in here?” Duke asks. His voice is low and intense, with an undercurrent of fear that does nothing to help calm Audrey’s nerves.

Audrey doesn’t know how to answer that question. It was one thing picking a direction at random across the empty plain, but now… Maybe they could walk around the edges, find a different spot to go through. It looks like there's a forest about ninety degrees to their left. Audrey glances behind her at the rock formations, then back to her boys. Nathan is standing quietly, watching, waiting for her to make a decision. Duke looks like he’s ready to crawl out of his skin, giving off anxiety like an octopus spraying ink. She wishes she knew why but she doesn’t have time to baby him. If it was important one of them would let her know.

Audrey looks back towards the rocks, her gut saying yes, they need to go through this maze.

“It’s this way.”

“I don’t like this,” Duke tells her.

Audrey’s laugh is bitter and sharp like the rocks. “Then leave. It’s your new go-to plan isn’t it?”

She reminds herself of Mara in the moment and that’s what stops her, not Nathan’s sharp “Parker!”

Nathan’s mouth hangs open in shock and Duke looks like she just kicked him in the gut. Audrey feels like she did too.

There are angry tears wanting to form at the back of her eyes. She wants to apologize-- it’s Duke after all and she hates seeing that look on his face that says he’s lived down to his worst expectations of himself. She wants to keep going, to rage at him for abandoning Haven when they needed him the most. This is Duke after all, _her Duke_ , _damnit_ , since when did he not come through for her?

Instead she turns on her heel and stalks off. “Come on,” she calls over her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stone teeth referred to in this chapter are based off of [Madagascar's Forest of Knives](https://www.tentree.com/blog/forest-knives-pristine-national-park-world/)


	2. Teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So KaelsMiscellany is awesome and made us a [playlist over on spotify](https://play.spotify.com/user/kaelstrom3/playlist/77X9eZSu37z7DoBSjSsDaV?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open)

Nathan sticks close behind her as they walk. He offers a quiet, “Parker?” but she doesn't answer.

She's in no mood to talk it out. They should be concentrating on where they’re going anyway. Audrey slips between the first row of rock pillars. She can’t shake the feeling that they are walking into the maw of an enormous creature. She stays in the lead with Duke bringing up the rear and Nathan in the middle. It’s one thing when you can’t feel your feet on Main Street, Haven. It’s another thing out here in the Void. The rock teeth rise twenty, then thirty feet into the air. The way grows dim as the shadows thicken and the path between the pillars narrows.

Audrey hears the scuttle of a small creature ahead of them. The first living thing since they’ve arrived. She holds her breath as they turn and find a small, white lizard darting along the wall ahead of them, clearly scared of these new creatures in its domain. The lizard isn’t pale in a natural way, it looks like something has leeched all the color out of its’ skin. Maybe the bone cliffs have done that since the thing blends in almost seamlessly with the wall behind it.

The terrified lizard dashes into a crack in the rock but leaves its tail behind. It drops onto a ledge wriggling helplessly, cut off. The rock is so sharp it must have sliced right through the tail. She puts a hand out, tests a corner in fascination. The jagged stone is razor sharp. She slows her pace and warns Nathan not to touch anything.

“Working on that, Parker,” he replies without inflection.

Duke hangs back and Audrey isn’t sure if he’s sulking, showing he still doesn’t want to be there, giving her space or what. He has his hands jammed into his pockets and looks twitchy whenever she glances back. He gives the lizard tail as wide a berth as he can. Audrey isn’t sure, but his eyes might have gone dark for a moment. She wasn’t watching carefully enough to tell--she has to concentrate on where she’s placing her feet.

The going is slow; the ground is mostly loose gravel that makes this place even more treacherous. A fall out here would easily slice through jeans and skin. Falling against the stone pillars is not an option. Audrey has an image of Nathan’s blood smeared against the walls as he pants, _“Can’t even feel it._ ” It sends a shudder down her spine and she turns to find him hale and whole, picking his way carefully behind her. Duke’s brown eyes are watchful on his friend’s back, wary and almost… almost scared. Audrey catches his gaze and nods. In this at least they are united in their worry.

It’s practically the only thing they’ve agreed on since he came back.

Audrey’s stomach had dropped when she’d seen Duke standing there at the door to Nathan’s little yellow house. She’d already felt like she was losing Nathan, like he wouldn’t be coming back from the Void and she’d been angry at Duke for coming back and facilitating him. She’d only gotten angrier and angrier as Duke explained the vision he’d had of Haven’s future, of Nathan’s death.

She’d been slightly mollified when Duke had announced he was going with Nathan into the Void. He loved Nathan, she still believed that. He would keep him safe. Then Duke had sided with Nathan against Audrey going. And maybe she might have let Nathan talk her into staying and putting out all the Haven fires while he was gone but who the hell was Duke Crocker to come in and tell her what to do and act like he gave a shit about Haven?

_“Nathan needs someone he can rely on,” she’d argued, watching the hurt bloom in Duke’s eyes with petty satisfaction._

Duke’s anxiety only rises as they continue. It swamps Audrey’s senses after a while. He doesn’t say a word but she sees how he watches Nathan like a hawk. He starts to shout once, twice, three times and bites his tongue each time.

“See it,” Nathan bites back, stepping carefully around whatever impediment Duke has spotted.

Audrey wants to scream at Duke to _stop distracting them_! But she bites her tongue as well and presses on. Her pack gets heavier and heavier, digging into her shoulders more than it had when they left Haven. She thinks of the water bottle in there and how she hasn’t seen any water here in this wasteland. She wonders if it will be enough to get them to the controller and back home.

The stone maze stretches ever onward, pillar after dangerous pillar. It feels like it might never end. Audrey wonders if they are even making forward progress or if the pillars keep resetting-- maybe for every one they edge past, two are placed in front of them. At one point the passage narrows so much they have to turn sideways to pass.

"Close enough for ya?" Audrey grumbles.

"Shoulda brought Dwight, he'd've been comfortable in here," Nathan replies. 

Still, Audrey holds her breath until Nathan and then Duke squeezes between the stone. 

When Audrey is just about ready to give up hope of ever getting out, a gap between two teeth gives a glimpse at the outside world.

The world is green, a brittle virulent green. The trees are darker than the pine trees back home; black oily drops hang from the edges of the needles. _Aether_ , Audrey realizes with a shiver. What isn’t black are the violently green parasitic plants. Audrey recognizes them from the woods near Haven. Garland Wuornos had pointed them out to her when they were hunting the wolf that turned out to be the Taylor trouble. He’d said the tree had come down with blight. Audrey thinks it’s a good name for the nasty things. The spiny parasites sap the tree’s strength so the tallest branches are leafless skeletal fingers clawing at the grey sky.  The ground is mossy, giving off a weird green glow dotted here and there with clusters of black capped mushrooms dripping more oily blackness and white topped ones with red pustules. The forest puts all Audrey’s hackles up and she longs to tell the boys to turn back, but that feeling in her gut pushes her onward.

Despite the wrongness of the woods it is still a relief to step between the last two pillars, for all of them; even Duke’s shoulders drop from around his ears.

Nathan catches her wrist and takes her pack from her.

“We should rest, Parker,” he says quietly, hands steady and warm in this cold, dead place. His eyes are the only piece of blue she’s seen since they’ve been there.

“Only for a minute,” she agrees.

They sit on the rocky ground at the edge of the forest and Nathan passes his water bottle around. They each take careful sips. Both men have realized it might need to last too, she realizes, and that thought promptly ties her stomach into knots.

“Everybody okay? No one got cut?” Duke asks, his voice still thready with nerves.

“‘m fine,” Nathan assures him holding up both hands so they can see.

Audrey nods silently and accepts the water bottle from Duke without comment.

“Listen…” Duke says and Audrey’s eyes snap to his. He’s using his serious voice.

Whatever Duke wants to say is lost when a portion of the forest gets to its feet with an ominous creak. Antlers that had blended in so well with the skeletal tops of the trees rise above the forest. Whole tree trunks crash before the creature as it thunders towards them on cloven hooves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blight  
> 
> 
> Creepy Mushrooms  
> 


	3. Pink Mist

"Run!”

Audrey doesn’t know which of them shouts the command but they do, the sick slide of adrenaline coursing through her veins powering her flight.

Audrey’s whole life is about the unnatural, but this thing, whatever it is, it is beyond even her scope.

She glances back. The trees are crashing down at the edge of the forest and the thing breaks into the open air. It might have been a deer-- it has the hooves and antlers-- but deer do not grow to be twenty feet tall. There are trees literally growing out of its back, it’s so big. It lets out a sound that starts off thin and reedy and deepens into a bellow so loud that she feels it with her whole body. That's not even the worst part. The worst part's the slavering, pointed incisors it reveals when it opens it's mouth and makes that horrible scream again.

Those are not the teeth of a deer.

Nathan trips over the uneven ground, but Duke is there hauling him up. They are slowing down for her, Audrey knows it. Nathan wasn’t joking about being faster than she is. They’ve both got longer legs.

A heavy wind slaps rocks and twigs against her back, rushing through the falling trees, sending up an eerie, hollow howl to accompany the deer-thing, making Audrey's already drumming heart slam even faster against her ribs. Audrey glances over her shoulder to see how far away the creature is and then she spots the source of the wind; behind the creature comes the thing that sparked its flight.

It is not chasing them.

Audrey does not know how she could have thought it was. She recognizes the deer thing’s movements now for panic-filled flight. She recognizes it because panic fills her own limbs, fuelled by the pink funnel that swirls out of the woods.

Tornado.

Her blood would run cold at just the thought but ordinary tornadoes cannot eat through forests; the winds would not be able to sustain themselves. This thing rips up trees as if they were matchsticks and in its depths she can see the bones of much larger things, whirling.

A horrible thought occurs to her as to why it might be pink and Audrey stumbles. Then a hand grips her arm.

“Don’t be dumb,” a familiar voice hisses.

“William?”

“You can’t outrun it! This way,” he says and drags her away.

“Nathan! Duke!” she calls, but it’s not necessary, they're already following.

The tornado closes in on the void beast, which lets out a deep lowing cry. It puts on a last burst of speed and though its six powerful legs propel it forward an amazing distance in almost no time, it still isn’t enough.

In the FBI, she went through a brief stint with the bomb unit, same as all the NATs did. The bomb guys had a name for what happens to people who are next to the bomb when it explodes. They called it pink mist.

The tornado rolling towards them tears the enormous creature apart in a shower of blood and guts and bone that swirls a grisly shade of pink against the blackened forest and gray sky.

William yanks her back into the stone forest, barely keeping her from slicing her arm open on the side of a pillar at the last second. Duke and Nathan stumble in after them. Audrey’s legs are ready to race through these stone teeth if it means getting away from the monster out there, but William has stopped and so she does too. The pink tornado gets closer, flinging dust and leaves into their eyes. The sound is enormous; the twisting winds do more than howl, they screech. It lifts Audrey’s hair into the air, blocks out the sun.

They all four stare as the hungry funnel swirls level with them.

It spins on past.

“There’s nothing for it to eat in here,” William explains, voice low and close to her ear.

Audrey shivers.

The click of Nathan’s gun is loud in the sudden silence.

“Step away from her,” he orders, voice deadly.

William puts his hands up and steps back slowly, not out of caution but insolently. He flashes them all a grin.

“What, no hug?”

Audrey’s hands fist at her sides so tightly she can feel her nails dig crescents into her palms.

“What the hell was that?” Audrey asks instead of hurling the stream of curses that are on the tip of her tongue. Of all the places in the Void he could’ve been lurking in...

“A dervish,” he offers sounding entirely too jaunty about the whole thing. “It eats… well, everything,” William grins at them again, smugly, as if he had personally created the damn thing.

“And the other thing?” Duke asks carefully. “The deer?”

“The duneyrr? They eat everything too. Well, except the dervishes and a few others,” William smirks and spreads his arms wide. “Welcome to the freak show.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do deer really scream, you ask? O.O [Yes. Yes they do.](https://youtu.be/TAZYqXwW5lA) You're welcome.


	4. Broken

Convincing William to help them goes exactly the way Audrey thinks it will.

“The wreckage of the barn?” William taps his lip and pretends to consider the question.

Audrey resists the urge to strangle him.

“Yeah I might have some idea of where that’s at,” he agrees. “Couldn’t draw you a map though,” he chuckles. “I’m terrible at giving directions, great at recall--like a homing pigeon.”

“How do we know you won’t lead us very conveniently into the jaws of another monster?” Duke asks, arms folded across his chest.

“Uh maybe because I could have let that one eat you?”  William shrugs like he doesn’t care one way or the other whether they come with him, and that’s when Audrey gets the idea that he might actually know where it is.

“I don’t trust him,” Nathan says.

Audrey agrees. She doesn’t trust him but for now their motivations are in alignment. William wants to get out of the Void and Audrey has a way out of the Void, so it’s in his best interests to help her. On her end, they need a guide, someone who knows how to at least stay out of the way of the things that inhabit the Void, and she would feel a lot better if she were going on something more than her gut as to where the crystal might be.

“We need him,” Audrey declares simply, overriding the other two, who both start to protest.

She has no doubt he has plans to double-cross them and she has no doubt he is aware that she intends to do the same. They are not letting him run loose in Haven again. If Charlotte were around to call someone to get him back to their home dimension (she cannot believe her life is an episode of _Star Trek_. They have a home dimension. How ridiculous is that?) she’d consider it. But she’s not, so Audrey won’t. Not even with the fresh image of the dervish swallowing the duneyrr in her mind. Audrey stamps down on the thought-- he survived here for five hundred years. The image of Detective Crocker shot dead in cold blood just because it might help William get back to Mara helps alleviate the guilt a whole lot.

“Which way?” she asks, shouldering her pack higher.

William rocks back on his heels pointing with both index fingers, “that-a-way." Of course, into the woods.

Audrey feels her stomach drop. At least she’d been right.

“Then let’s go.”

William gestures grandly in front of him. “Ladies first,” he offers.

Audrey fakes a laugh. “I don’t think so.”

Nathan cocks the trigger on his gun again.

“Oh you can put that away,” William waves his hand in dismissal, “we all know you’re not going to shoot me. We’ve already seen what that’d do to your precious Parker.”

Nathan glances to Audrey first who shrugs and nods. He holsters the weapon reluctantly.

“Plus, machines, gears, moving parts, they don’t work here. This is the Void, the place for everything that doesn’t belong anywhere else. If you wanna kill someone,” William wiggles his fingers and turns away nonchalantly “you have to do it with your bare hands.” Audrey knows he is purposely giving them his back, showing that he believes they wouldn’t dare to try. Fury burns deep in her gut.

When she comes level with the very last pillar, Audrey puts out a hand and drags it down the edge, slicing her index finger so cleanly it is almost painless. Blood wells from the cut immediately.

Nathan starts to make a sound but Audrey shakes her head. Catching his eye she holds up the bleeding finger and then glances pointedly at William who has continued to walk on undisturbed. Duke’s eyebrows are at his hairline already. He understands what that means. Nathan’s brows furrow for a moment and then he smiles, the first real smile she’s seen since they entered the Void.

‘Broken?’ he mouths.

Audrey nods. It’s just as she’d suspected. The connection between her and William was broken when Charlotte fused her with Mara the same way the connection between Mara and Duke was broken.

Duke fishes in his pocket and hands Nathan something small. Nathan smiles another real smile and passes it to Audrey.

It is a band-aid.

Audrey laughs silently and Duke smiles at her and for a moment it's like old times.

Then she remembers the bandaid that decorated Nathan’s forehead for days after his trek to get the transformers running again and the smile falls from her face. Duke’s shoulders hunch at her expression.

“You coming?” William calls. “I don’t have all millennium!”

“Keep your pants on,” Audrey answers.

“That’s not what you used to say to me,” William rejoins and Nathan makes his ‘inches away from being homicidal’ face that he usually reserves for Duke.

Audrey pats his shoulder in comfort and they turn and follow the psychopath into the land of the lost.

“How far is this place, Pigeon?” Audrey demands.

William chuckles. “Through the woods and far away. We’re not going to make it before tomorrow mid-morning.”

Audrey finds she’s surprised there are days in the Void. Then the realization rolls through her that it will get dark and they will still be here and the things that inhabit the Void will also still be here. It is not a comforting thought. _Dwight will be worried_ is her next thought, and when she glances down at her watch the cold dread in her stomach doubles. _Gears, moving parts, they all don’t work here,_ William had said. The hour hand on the watch hasn’t budged, though it has definitely been at least a few. They have no idea when Dwight will have Hailie open the next thinny. In the long run it is the least of their problems, but it leaves Audrey feeling open, vulnerable. Yet another thing that’s beyond her control here.

“You don’t want to risk travelling here at night,” William adds seriously. Audrey believes him.


	5. Prints

William’s path takes them along a narrow ridge bordered by those horribly black pine trees on one side and a slope that ends in a cliff on the other. The path widens up ahead into a clearing. They’re almost there when disaster strikes.

They’ve been watching Nathan like a hawk in this uncertain terrain; it’s Nathan after all who died in Duke’s vision, it’s Nathan who can’t feel. No one is watching Duke. He takes one wrong step, the ground shifts and with a shout Duke is skidding over the side of the ridge towards the cliff.

Nathan flings himself flat and grabs hold of Duke’s arm at the last second.

“Hold on, Duke,” he orders.

Audrey does her best to anchor Nathan, but both the boys outweigh her and there’s nothing sturdy to latch on to.

“William!” she cries and he ambles over, lazily. “Help!” she commands and he smirks at her, the bastard.

“I don’t really need a Crocker,” he tells her. “When we pull him up he’ll be all bloody, will probably lead all kinds of nasty beasties to us in the night. We should just let him fall, he’s expendable.” William says it with all the interest one might have in whether to pack an extra pair of socks or to throw them away. Audrey’s muscles tighten with the rage that floods her body.

Audrey’s next words are gritted out through clenched teeth and Duke, even though he is currently hanging over the side of a cliff, looks surprised when she says with certainty “He is not expendable to me.”

William sighs and rolls his eyes but grabs hold of Audrey’s waist from behind and heaves. Inch by precious inch, they pull until Nathan is back on solid ground and finally Duke as well. Audrey falls back onto her butt and watches with her heart still pounding in her throat the way Nathan and Duke lay piled together on the ground panting. Nathan’s slim fingers keep patting at Duke  to make sure he’s still there, even though he can’t feel him.

They’re both covered in mud and Duke’s shirt and coat have ridden up in the back, exposing his skin to the cold of the Void.

“Ho ho ho! Look at those prints!” William guffaws and Audrey sits up, follows William’s gaze to the patchwork of aether-black hand prints decorating Duke’s back. “Somebody Troubled you goo…” the laughter drains out William’s voice like someone pulled a plug somewhere.

His eyes go hard. He pulls Duke up and slams him against the nearest tree.

“Mara did that,” William snarls. “Little Miss Perfect Parker would never have made those prints. What did you do to her?”

Audrey thought she’d seen William feral before in the Trouble-free Haven when it seemed like there was no way back to their world. She hasn’t. William’s face is a rictus of terror and grief, like he already knows what happened to Mara. The fist he pulls back and plants in Duke’s gut is ferocious. Audrey can see all the air whoosh out of Duke’s lungs.

Then Duke grins.  It is not a nice grin.

Audrey doesn’t even see Duke throw the punch, just sees William stagger from the force of it, three dangerous steps closer to the edge of the cliff again.

William is single minded in his focus. He charges Duke. “Where is she?” William shouts, pounding away at the other man. Duke wrestles viciously; he’s not afraid to hurt William, as he has been to hurt Nathan in all the other times Audrey’s seen him fight.

William has the benefit of rage on his side though, and the battle teeters in his favor until Nathan steps in. He swings a punch at William that William gleefully returns.

“Been wanting an excuse to hit you again, Wuornos,” he taunts.

“Surprised you’re willing to stoop to it yourself. No aether lackeys to do your dirty work?” Nathan rejoins.

Audrey wishes desperately for a hose.

She’s wrenching a half dead branch from one of the trees, about ready to hit any or all of them with it, when William knocks Nathan flat on his ass. Duke charges him and William knocks him back too. Nathan touches a hand to his bleeding lip and smiles a red smile. He plasters his Troubled blood on Duke’s hand and drops his head back down to the ground, satisfaction clear on his features.

“What did you do?” Duke swears. There is fear in his voice, real true horror.

Audrey lets go of the tree branch.

Duke’s eyes do not go silver.

They go aether black and huge in his face.

He gets to his knees and gasps out one word.

“Run!” he commands.

Nathan scrambles backward through the scatter of dead grey-brown leaves, seeking purchase to get to his feet. Duke’s eyes are focused on Nathan’s split lip with all the attention of a hungry crocodile.

“Get out of here,” Duke growls.

“Duke?” Audrey tries but all of Duke’s attention is focused on Nathan now. He doesn’t even see William tackle him from the side. William and Duke fight and if Audrey thought they were brutal before, this is beyond that. William finds himself on the losing end as Duke’s fists pummel him to get away and his eyes keep seeking out Nathan. When Duke throws William the width of the clearing to land against a tree, Audrey thinks that’s it. Duke doesn’t even look like himself anymore. There’s nothing but hunger staring out of those eyes.

 _He looks_ \- Audrey’s heart sinks as she has the thought – _just like one of the void beasts_.

Duke stalks towards Nathan with intent and Nathan-- the loyal fool-- holds his ground.

“Duke?” he says, trying to reach his friend.

Audrey goes back to wrenching the branch from the tree, hoping she has time to knock him out. She doesn’t see it when William gets to his knees but she hears Nathan’s surprised cry. When she turns William has both hands outstretched. One of them is black with aether and Duke is frozen in mid-movement, like a puppet with its strings pulled.

“Well, that’s interesting,” William says mildly.

“What’s happening to him?” Audrey demands.

“Aether poisoning. He’s got too much in his system so the Crocker Trouble’s taking over, doing what it was meant to do. Hunting Troubled blood.”

William smirks at Nathan. Duke snarls.

“Probably been holding this in since he got here. All the aether in the ground… I’m surprised he didn’t go rabid earlier.”

Duke struggles against the hold, his face gone red with rage. He doesn’t ask to be let go though. There’s got to be some part of him that registers what a danger he’d be to Nathan, Audrey is sure of it.

“What can we do?” Nathan demands.

“Walk it off for now,” William says. “Come on, we’re wasting daylight,” he says and frog marches Duke onward.

“Can’t we, I dunno…bleed some of it off?” Nathan asks.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you, Nate?” the black-eyed Duke demands, straining his neck to see Nathan over his shoulder, mouth curled in a sneer Audrey has never seen before.

“Duke…” Nathan tries for something to say but Duke talks right over him.

“You wanna know about the prints?” Duke hisses at Wiliam. “You’re right. It was Mara. She escaped and put her hands all-“ Duke draws out the word, infuses it with dirty satisfaction and innuendo, “over me.”

Audrey hates his words, _hates_ them, hates the way they make her want to put her own hands in her pockets. To hide them. To escape the knowledge that the black prints on Duke’s back, the matching print she knows is on his chest, the aether in his eyes, they came from these hands. He had seemed like the best choice, the only choice, for keeping Mara caged. She didn’t think she’d been exposing him to _this_ _._

“She put her hands on me,” Duke laughs mockingly, the words trickling out over his tongue individually, like he’s savoring them, “just like she used to put them on you.”

William jerks his hands and Duke ‘trips’, slamming hard into the rough ground. Audrey and Nathan protest, but Duke just continues laughing from his hands and knees. “D’you know she said she cared about me, William? Imagine that. Mara. Caring when these two,” Duke rocks his head to indicate Audrey and Nathan, “couldn’t find a moment to spare for poor dying Duke, never mind it was their cause I was dying for.”

Audrey glances at Nathan, eyebrows raised in question. _Dying?_ she wonders, _Nathan never said anything about Duke dying_.

“Sounds just like the good guys,” William agrees.

“The real kicker is-- she really believed it,” Duke laughs, and it is strangely full of pity. “But we both know what being cared for by Mara is like. You’re only amusing for so long, you never know when the knife is going to come.” Audrey expects William to make Duke pay for that comment. William says nothing but his eyes are wary now. _He believes Duke_ , she realizes. He knows what he’s saying is true.

William notices Audrey watching and shakes himself. “She didn’t need a knife--did she, Crocker?” he scoffs. “She got you good with just her hands.”

“She was good with her hands,” Duke agrees with a smirk that has none of his usual charm to make the words less lecherous. Nathan flinches.

William drags Duke up to his feet with the invisible reins on the aether in his blood. Slams him up against a tree.

“What happened to her?” William demands. “Why didn’t she come find me?”

“Find you? What for? She didn’t need you anymore,” Duke sneers.

“Because she had you?” William scoffs.

“She needed some more inept bumbling? Five hundred years and you couldn’t get her out of that barn. Why would she bother with such a weakling?”

William’s face goes cold.

“She asked about you.” Nathan says, drawing William’s attention. “Needed your aether stash when she first showed up. Needed her good dog to get her more didn’t she?”

“I’m worth more to her than that,” William snarls, stalking towards Nathan.

Nathan plants his legs, braces himself. He’s daring William to hit him so he stops going after Duke, Audrey realizes.

“You were a means to an end. She knew you were here in the void and she didn’t care. She didn’t even try to come after you. She black handed Duke and set him off like a bomb to trouble the whole town and not once, not once did she even say your name. “

William is two steps away from Nathan, murder in his eyes, when Duke laughs.

“Look at you, still her faithful dog.” Duke taunts. “Guess we both know what that’s like.” Duke’s eyes flick to Audrey’s and there’s something less empty in them now. They hold on hers as he husks out, “even when they throw us away. Even when they show us with each careless action we’re not worth it. Still we hold on, hoping she might feel even an ounce for us-”

“She loved me,” William sneers at Duke. “She chose me. You might be a pathetic mongrel, Crocker, following after Perfect Parker and hoping for scraps, but I’m not.”

“She died and she didn’t ask for you. Didn’t even think of you. All she wanted was more aether, more Troubles. She didn’t love you, William. She didn’t know how to.”

The blow comes so fast neither Nathan nor Audrey can block it, though they both try. William’s fist connects with Duke’s jaw --a sickening crack and Duke’s head slumps to his chest.


	6. What's in the Void?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crocotta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocotta) are not my invention and I have Kedreeva to thank for the patches.

They all retreat to separate corners after that.

 

William stalks off into the trees and Audrey rounds on Nathan.

“What the hell was he talking about?”

Nathan has the good grace to blush.

“You knew!” She hisses. “You knew he was _dying_? Is he still dying from something she did?”

“ _You_ were dying, Parker,” Nathan answers voice tight with emotion. “And Duke was… there was a lot going on, okay. With you and Charlotte and the Trouble flu and you know how Duke is, he said he was dying-“

“And you didn’t believe him?” She cuts him off, incredulous and angry.

“It wasn’t like he was going to keel over right there,” Nathan defends but Audrey sees the guilt in his eyes. “We had time to help him. I didn’t have time to help you!”

“You might have mentioned it!” She barely restrains herself from shouting. “God, Nathan, I could have done _something._ I thought he was coping okay with Mara because you never said any different!” Not that she’d asked. The split had been...it had been weird and she’d let a lot of things go at the time. Things she’s horrified to realize now.

“It’s Duke!” Nathan says, sounding offended, “he can handle himself. I thought he’d be fine; if I could just save you first, then we’d have time to help him.”

“Clearly he wasn’t fine!” She’s mad at Nathan but she’s also angry at herself. She hadn’t asked. Hadn’t even thought to.

Audrey can’t continue the conversation because William walks back into the clearing at that moment, and if there’s one thing she doesn’t need him to see, it’s her and Nathan at odds.

“Might as well take a load off. We’re setting up camp here tonight,” William announces, flinging down an armful of firewood.

“Is that…safe?” Nathan asks.

William shrugs. “Safe as any place out here,” he says.

Audrey looks to the sky through the bare tree-tops. It doesn’t appear any dimmer, still that same ominous gray. Even the clouds are threatening here; they look like waves ready to crash over them.

“How long until dark?” she asks.

William chuckles humorlessly. “Not long enough,” he says.

In terms of defense, it’s not a bad spot. There’s the cliff on one side that would make it difficult to sneak up on them from there. The trees form a wide half circle, giving them space to spread out or retreat if need be. The wind sweeps in from the wide canyon over the cliff,making it colder than in the woods but the fire will help with that. Audrey still wishes she had brought gloves though.

The fire takes a long time to catch. The wood is too inundated with aether to burn well. It sends up noxious puffs of smoke at first and William makes them build it larger and larger. As night falls Audrey can’t help feel it’s not a campfire but a beacon, attracting all the big and toothies to them.

“The big and toothies aren’t all you have to look out for here,” William replies when she voices her concerns, the flames throwing shadows on his face.

“What else is there?” Nathan wants to know.

“You want to tell ghost stories around the campfire, Wuornos?”

Nathan huffs in annoyance.

“I’ll tell you this, whatever happens tonight, know that I am not leaving the light of this fire.” William declares. “And if you are foolish enough to do so, I will not be coming after you.”

Audrey rolls her eyes. “So valiant of you.”

“Ever heard of a crocotta?” William asks.

Audrey shakes her head but Nathan nods, brows furrowed in thought.

“’s a hyena thing?” he volunteers. Audrey wants badly to roll her eyes, thinking of Nathan’s werewolves and ghosts theories early on in their partnership. _Of course_ Nathan knows what a crocotta is. Her partner is as fascinated by the weird as he once accused her of being.

William nods. “They escaped from the Void centuries ago. They follow groups - like our happy little band - during the day out here and learn the names. Then when night falls they call out for you. They use the voices of your friends, your family; they call for you until you feel like you’ll go insane if you don’t look, it has to be them. It sounds so real. And once you leave the circle of firelight? The pack makes sure the only thing we’ll find of you are your bones.”

Audrey glances up at the sky. It seems… _closer_ somehow.

“That’s not the only thing out there to worry about,” William slips from his crouch to sit on the ground, rolling his shoulders. Audrey notices his coat is frayed at the edges. “There are the shadows that blow in the wind, the mirror creatures, there are heart hounds that can track you by the very beat of your heart in your chest, but the worst are the patches.”

“Patches?” Audrey asks and her voice is as derisive and full of false bravado as she can make it.

William looks up and the firelight reflects orange in his eyes. “Patches where everything is silent. Your ears work; there’s just no sound. Not your footsteps, not even your breathing. Anything could be floating behind you or crashing through the forest; even if it broke a dozen branches, there’s no sound to tell you it’s creeping up on you from behind. Going backwards doesn’t get you out of there. You just have to go forward, keep pushing through. There’s no rhyme, no reason for why they end-- they just do.

There’s patches of dark too. You can’t even tell you’re about to walk into one until you’re in it. Your eyes still work just fine. It’s just pitch black. You have no idea what you’re walking into, what else might be in there with you, except for the noises; long low hissing sounds, scraping noises like something rough and long and large slithering somewhere in all that dark. Sometimes there’s just the wet noise of something breathing but you can’t tell where it’s coming from. Those,” he laughs and it is devoid of all humor, “those make you wish you could go back to the silent patches.”

Audrey waits for William to continue, but he doesn’t say another word, just stares into the dancing flames.

Audrey goes and sits beside Duke, checks his pulse and his breathing. She’s a little envious that he gets to sleep through some of their time here. She doesn’t think she will be able to. There are dark shadows under his eyes that even sleep has not erased. His face seems thinner, his cheekbones sharper. Audrey wonders if he is still dying. He’d said he felt better once he let out those Troubles. She’d thought it helped. She wonders: when he opens his eyes again will they be the warm brown she knows or empty aether black?

Nathan sits on Duke’s other side and offers Audrey a granola bar from his pack.

“It’s not pancakes, but it’s better than pine bark,” he offers.

Audrey gives him a smile she doesn’t feel and accepts the bar. It takes her chilled fingers a few tries to actually get it open. Though she has been walking for the majority of the day, she finds she isn’t hungry. She forces herself to eat, to drink some of their dwindling water supply. William must be getting water from somewhere though, she figures . All the while she watches Nathan. He sits with his arms propped on his bent knees, but every now and then he drops a hand to Duke’s chest even though he can’t feel it and watches carefully for it to rise and fall with his breathing.

He’s worried, Audrey realizes, has been for weeks now. That’s what he’s been doing since Duke left, not cursing Duke for leaving like she had been. No, he’s been worrying about what’s been happening to Duke since he left. It hits her hard then--he hasn’t even been angry. Nathan Wuornos, who had jumped on every imagined or real slight Duke Crocker ever made against him hasn’t complained once that Duke left them in the lurch or growled about how they could have used him on _any_ of the Troubles that Audrey isn’t immune to. They turned a corner while she was in the barn, something healed between them, and Nathan hadn’t been angry anymore. But not even one complaint? He knows something else, something he hasn’t shared with her. Audrey feels the granola settle like lead in her stomach.

“He was dying because I re-Troubled him, wasn’t he?” Audrey asks quietly.

Nathan nods. “Even before Mara showed up he told me he could feel the Troubles in his blood waking up, swamping him.”

“She helped him let some out,” Audrey says slowly; she remembers a little of that now.

Nathan nods. “You… I… We couldn’t do anything after the split so I just…”

“Didn’t say anything. And he didn’t say anything and oh god, Nathan he could have died,” she hisses, her heart twisting in her chest. She thinks back to that reset day when he lay on the street, run over because she gave him her rent check on time. She’d felt the weight of that so deeply. She hadn’t been driving the car, she hadn’t known to warn him then. But this? This would have been her fault. She’d Troubled him of her own accord. Mara hadn’t used her hands to do it.

They both look down at Duke, at the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

“Shoulda told you,” Nathan confesses. His voice is soft in the way that they have learned to be together and it hurts to hear the regret in it. “Didn’t know what to do.”

“But we’re partners. That’s what we do. We figure things out _together_.” Audrey’s voice cracks on the words. She reaches out, twines her fingers through Nathan’s where they rest on Duke’s shoulder.

“When she set him up to be a Trouble bomb, he thought he was gonna die for sure. He was gonna come here, to the void, plan was to let the Troubles explode out of him where they couldn’t hurt anyone...”

He’d said something like that in the hospital. She didn’t know Nathan had known. “And you were just going to let him?” she demands.

“No! I talked him out of it! Or tried to, but it’s Duke. He’s stubborn. Then Charlotte did whatever she did and…”

There’s a flutter of wings and a triumphant noise from the wood then the scream of something dying.

Audrey shivers.

“Well isn’t this touching,” Duke rasps and Audrey and Nathan both jump. “Literally,” he adds with a grimace pressing up onto his elbow. “But I don’t think either of you should be this close to me right now.”

He clambers to his feet from between the two of them. Staggers a moment. William watches with interest from the other side of the fire but says nothing. Duke’s eyes are brown and wary in the firelight. Audrey wants to cry in relief.

She settles for asking instead, “how’s your jaw?”

Duke shrugs and sits down against a tree trunk almost halfway around the clearing. The cliff and its sharp drop are too close to him for Audrey’s comfort.

“You okay?” Nathan tries.

“I’m not going to tell you my big teeth are all the better to eat you with, Nathan,” Duke assures him with a tired wave of his hand.

Nathan nods.

Audrey looks between them in the silence that falls. Duke’s got his head tipped back and his eyes closed. It looks like he’s counting, timing his breaths; trying to find his inner calm or something probably.

She thinks of the last fire she shared with Duke. It feels like a lifetime ago that he’d crouched in front of her and pleaded with her to see him, not the show he was putting on for the rest of the world.

She walks over to where Duke is and hands him a water bottle. He takes it reluctantly and takes a cautious sip. Audrey watches him swallow for a moment and then sits very purposefully next to him so her shoulder brushes his arm. Duke flinches at the contact.

“What?” he asks, and his voice is tired, strained.

“Are you okay?” she asks him quietly.

“I’m not going to eat your boyfriend, if that’s what you’re worried about, Audrey.”

“We already covered that, Duke. I’m asking are _you_ okay?”

Duke shrugs. “Why do you want to know, Audrey? Aren’t you supposed to be mad at me? I abandoned you and the town and all that?”

Audrey flushes guiltily. He’d almost died for her and their town too.

“I missed something important this morning when I was yelling at you,” she confesses.

Duke doesn’t encourage her to continue but she does anyway. “You came back. You didn’t have to. Probably would’ve been better for you if you hadn’t. That was a choice too. You chose to come back to us.”

Duke bites out a laugh, shrugs, but his shoulders are looser now, that awful tension gone.

“It’s an easy enough point to miss. I mean it’s not like you’re a detective and all,” he says slyly.

Audrey laughs too, leans into him. This time he doesn’t tense up.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

She hears Duke’s breath stutter for a moment. “Me too,” he answers finally, his voice so soft. She’s only ever heard him use that tone with her and it brings a sharp sting of tears to her eyes. She blinks them away quickly.

“Why didn’t you call _me_ ?” Audrey needs to know. She’s afraid he’ll answer with accusations of selfishness or worse, but she has to ask . “If Nathan wasn’t helping you with Mara and the aether and your Trouble had gotten so bad? You should have called _me_ , Duke.” Why didn’t _she_ call _him_?

“You were dying, Audrey-” is what he says. His voice cracks on her name and he drops his head forward but his curls have been shorn away and there’s nothing to hide the grief in his expression. Audrey could weep too, she feels absolved by his words.

Audrey curves gentle fingers around his jaw, tipping his head up. She meets his sad brown gaze. “I’m not dying now,” she reminds him. “We’re going to fix this,” she declares fiercely.

Duke gives her a crooked smile. “How could I say no to that?” he asks.

Audrey strokes her thumb softly over the bruise on the edge of his cheek and Duke hisses. “Are you okay?” she asks for the third time that evening.

Duke shrugs. “I don’t- I don’t think I’m dying anymore. It feels different than before the Troubles exploded out of me. It feels like William said, like my Trouble takes over. Like I’m not running the show,” there’s real shame in his voice and his shoulders.

He looks so lost, so frustrated. Control is important to Duke. Audrey’s no fool, Duke may drink but it’s never to excess, all the meditation and yoga, Duke has made it his business to be in total control of himself so much so that he regularly fights the Crocker curse when it’s dragged lesser men under like a riptide. Audrey hates that this incarnation of his Trouble can rip that control away from him like that. Worse though, she knows what it's like to be a passenger in your own body. It’s a horrible helpless place. One she’s not going to let Duke stay in. He didn’t let _her_ after all…

“We’re going to figure this out,” she promises him, pouring determination into her voice. “We’ll get the crystal and make the new barn and the Troubles will stop.” She has to believe that. She has to believe that’s possible. She’ll make it so, whatever she has to do. Duke doesn’t deserve any of this.

Duke’s hand on her wrist keeps her from continuing. His eyes are tired and sad. “I won’t live like this, Audrey,” he tells her, realistic as ever, she can make promises til the cows come home. They both know she doesn't know how to fix this. “I won’t live like a monster," he swears, voice rough, and Audrey knows he's thinking of Wade, of Simon. "If I go void again and William can’t stop me, you have to end it.”.

Audrey rocks back like he’s slapped her. _He was going to come here and let himself explode rather than Trouble anyone else._ This isn’t something new. Duke has been thinking about this for a while now.

“Duke,” she says, struggling to find other words.

“I’ve already hurt too many people, Audrey. I won’t be responsible for hurting Nathan or you. Promise me,” he pleads.  

 _I can’t save this town. I’m not the solution, I’m the problem_ , Duke had said before he walked into the mist. Duke has worked so hard, helped even when it wasn’t in his best interests, and he still thinks he’s not a hero; still thinks that he’s not worth saving. It hurts something deep in her chest to come to this realization. To know that some of that is because she and Nathan failed him--failed at being his friend, failed at acknowledging how bad things had been for him, failed at noticing the burdens he carried because they were too caught up in their own.

“I’m not going to make you that promise, Duke. I won’t. You’re tired and you haven’t had anyone in your corner for too long, but there’s so much fight left in you. We can beat this!”

Audrey’s words ring hollow to her own ears.

She has no idea how to fight this and they both know that she, like Mara, is at heart practical.

If Duke is a threat that can’t be contained, she’ll deal with it. She won’t be happy about it, and Nathan will probably never forgive her, but she’ll deal with it. She’s just not going to let it get to that point. She’ll keep William around, in chains if she has to, make him teach her how to use the aether in Duke’s blood like a leash her own damn self. Something. Somehow. She’s let Duke down too often in the past. She’s _going_ to save him.

They don’t get to continue the conversation because Nathan starts shouting her name. He sounds hoarse, panicked and exhausted. “Parker! Parker, help me!”

Audrey and Duke’s heads snap up, but Nathan is sitting right where they left him, face a mask of bewilderment. The noises from the woods keep coming though.


	7. Crocotta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Crocotta are borrowed from Indian/Ethiopian myth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocotta) I would absolutely not want to cross them. Thanks to Kedreeva for telling me about them._

“Parker, I’m in here! That’s not really me in the clearing with you!”

Audrey gets to her feet, Duke right behind her.

Nathan shakes his head. “That’s not me,” he denies.

To their left William laughs. “Told you there were crocotta in these woods.”

“Crocotta?” Duke asks, looking wildly from Audrey to Nathan to William to the woods where it still sounds like Nathan is struggling with… something.

“We found them in that book in the junior high library, remember? Hyena things-” Nathan starts to explain, but Duke nods.

“They exist here?” he asks, but the sounds from the woods are answer enough.

"In the lovely, scenic Void not only can you be surrounded by Crocotta, you can be emotionally attacked by them. A two for one deal, Chuck. Please keep your hands and arms inside the firelight if you value the flesh on them," William intones, his voice is smarmy but his eyes are intensely focused on the darkness between the trees.

“They’re trying to get us to come out of the firelight. If we step into the woods, our tour guide here, says they’ll pick our bones clean.”

“Parker, he’s lying! That’s not me! Parker you’re in danger!” the voice in the dark shouts, and even though she is looking directly at Nathan, Audrey cannot help the burn of fear at the voice, the tone. And she hates that. Hates it.

“Eight out of ten points for effort,” Audrey yells back, “but Nathan has a much girlier scream than that!”

“Hey!” Nathan protests, but she can tell he’s miming the affront; his eyes are still worried.

“Parker, please! I can’t move! They did something… Audrey!” It sounds just like him, like he’s at the end of his rope and he needs her to come for him.

“He’d have left out half the words in that sentence too!” she shouts back at the woods.

Nathan holds out a hand and Audrey takes it, her grip tight, tighter than is comfortable and she knows he can feel that, but he doesn’t say a word. She is looking right at Nathan, but her feet want to run, her chest burns with the itch. He’s in the woods and he’s in danger. She can _hear_ him.

The voice in the woods lets out an agonizing scream and then falls quiet.

Audrey closes her eyes and cannot suppress a shudder. Nathan is fine. She can feel his fingers, warm and strong and whole where she’s gripping them. _It’s just a lousy crocotta,_ she tells herself, but she lets Nathan draw her into his side anyway, needs the heat and solid bulk of him.

After a few minutes of quiet, Nathan’s shoulders relax. _He thinks it’s over,_ Audrey realizes, _thinks they’ve grown bored and wandered off_. The look in William’s eyes tells her different. It has only just begun.

“Can’t we drive them off?” Audrey demands of William, who shrugs.

“What’ve you got to drive them off with, Audrey? Your scathing wit?”

Audrey glares.

“The best we can do is stay here and not get eaten.”

They take advantage of the respite. Audrey and Nathan sit down near to the fire, Duke sits closer than before, closing ranks against the things in the dark. They don’t talk. They wait, braced for the next attack. Wondering who will be next. The flames crackle and spark, the tree tops creak in the wind. Audrey’s feet are killing her, her back aches; she would love to be able to lay down right now, but that doesn’t seem likely.

She hates to think what would have happened if William hadn’t warned them about the crocotta. Would she have turned on Nathan? Gone running into the woods? Would Duke have? Audrey Parker once watched a Discovery Channel special on hyenas. Had seen what they do when they attack as a pack. Audrey is lost in what ifs when the next attack starts.

She is startled to hear her own voice shrieking from the woods. “Nathan! Duke! Where are you? Nathan!” Audrey can hear the fear in her own voice, raw panic like she’d never let show. Nathan’s hand tightens on hers. She can see his breathing coming faster, his jaw clenching, expression going studiously blank.

“Come on!” Audrey shouts, before he can get even more worked up. She climbs to her feet to complain, “that doesn’t even sound like me!”  

Duke and Nathan stand with her, flanking her protectively, and Audrey feels a rush of love for these men.

“You’re in danger!” the thing in the woods shouts the same old line. “She isn’t me! She had me tied up and I escaped! I’ve been trying to catch up with you! Duke, please! You have to listen!” the voice sounds closer, gasping the words like she’s running.

“Seven out of ten,” Duke grades. “Way too many exclamation marks,” he jokes, though his voice wobbles. Audrey reaches out and gives his hand a squeeze, smiles at him encouragingly.

“There’s something following me,” Audrey in the woods announces. “It’s big! Please! Where are you guys?”

“Nah,” Nathan says, giving himself a visible shake, “give it a six. Parker’s smarter’n that. She wouldn’t announce her location to whatever was following her in the woods.”

Audrey laughs. “Thank you,” she tells Nathan. He gives her a grim smile that goes nowhere near his eyes, but at least he’s trying.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that!” she shouts into the trees.

Maybe the crocotta lsten to her, because the next scream from the woods makes Duke go pale, his wide eyes searching the shadows beyond the clearing.

“Let me go!” Evi’s voice demands from somewhere in the dark. “My husband’s coming! He’s big and he’ll be pissed! Duke! Duke I’m here! Duke!”

Duke holds incredibly, terribly still, only the tremor in his hands gives him away.

“Duke, I need you! Duke help! Please, Duke!” the voice pauses, sobs loudly for long moments, cries out in pained exclamations like she’s being hurt. A wealth of images plays through Audrey’s mind though she’s sure the ones in Duke’s head are worse. She steps closer to him and Nathan follows, dropping a hand on Duke’s shoulder as the voice in the woods wails, awful, wretched sobs. When the sobs stop and the words come again, they are even worse.

“Duke! Duke please! I’m sorry I lied!” The tone is desperate, pleading, like a child begging forgiveness. “I’m sorry I worked with the Rev! I need you to come for me, Duke! Please!”

Duke shakes his head. “Too dramatic,” he mutters, “Evi would never have been so on the nose. She was a much better actress than that.”

Audrey reaches out and squeezes his hand anyway. It’s shaking and she has to pry his cold fingers out of the fist they’ve curled into.

The next sound out of the woods isn’t one they’re expecting. Evi’s gone, replaced by a gruff male voice.

“Nathan?” It calls, strong but with an undercurrent of fear that the voice would be trying to cover if it came from its owner. “Where are you, son?” Garland Wuornos’ voice rings into the night.

Nathan jolts, fists clenched. Audrey wraps her hand around his wrist under his jacket, skin to skin where she knows he will feel it. How dare they use his father against him.

“Don’t you come after me, y’hear?” Garland’s voice gruffs out, “No matter what they do to me you just stay safe and tight in that clearing. I’m only your father; I only raised you, no reason to go risking life and limb.”

Duke’s eyes go wide. Audrey cannot tell whether she wants to laugh or cry. It sounds just like him. Nathan just listens, face impassable.

“Nathan!” this time the voice is raised in a pained shout, breath heavy like he’s struggling against someone. “Nathan, it’s Hansen! He’s coming for your mother! Nathan, you can’t let him get to her!”

Nathan flinches like he’s been struck. He turns his face away from the firelight to hide his pained expression. Even after all this time and everything they have been through, Nathan has never told Audrey about his mother. Looking at him now, she can see it is still a raw wound

Duke gets a hand on Nathan’s shoulder, shakes him gently. “Breathe, man,” he reminds him.

Nathan takes a deep shuddering breath, just in time for the scream from the woods- a woman’s scream.

“Nathan, help me!”

Audrey doesn’t recognize the voice, but she can guess who it belongs to.

Nathan jerks in their hold and Audrey squeezes his hand.

“No! Max! No-” She screams again, a wild wordless cry full of pain- “Nathan, help!” The voice in the woods gives a last terrified shriek that curls away on the breeze.

In the silence that follows, Nathan drops to his knees, breathing sharp and shallow. Audrey rubs a hand down his spine. Duke hands him the bottle of water they’ve been passing around. It’s almost empty now. Nathan drains it with hands that shake.

Duke kneels next to him. “You’re alright,” Duke says, a reminder and an instruction and a question all at once. Nathan nods, clipped and short.

Time passes, minutes, maybe fifteen. They unclench a little. Audrey sits again, facing the trees, and Nathan and Duke follow suit. William says nothing, huddles deeper into the frayed collar of his coat. The crocotta have tried the three newbies, maybe it’s over, maybe they’ll leave. It is a foolish thought, Audrey knows. This is the Void, things in here don’t give up after one try.

The dead leaves rustle in the rising wind. There’s no moon overhead, no stars, just blackness. Audrey doesn’t know if it’s the clouds or if the sky is truly empty here. She feels cold, even with the fire roaring at her back and pressed tight to Nathan’s side. His hand is cold in hers, his fingers clutch hers just as tightly. On Nathan’s other side Duke has his eyes shut and is breathing slowly and purposefully. Audrey hopes it’s helping.

They get maybe half an hour of silence, Audrey is just starting to unclench when a woman’s shriek sounds from the woods, high and thready in a voice that was more used to laughter than fear.

“Duke! Duke! Help me!” Jennifer’s voice rings out, strident with terror.

Nathan grabs Duke’s arm, but Duke isn’t going anywhere.

Duke hangs his head, his shoulders slump, his whole body curves inward.

“Duke There’s something here! Something in the dark with me. Duke, why won’t you come? Duke I need you to find me,” the voice pleads.

Nathan gets a hand around the back of Duke’s neck, shakes him the same way Duke had done earlier. “’S not real,” he reminds his friend, voice gruff with emotion.

Duke nods. “I know,” he says but the words come out like he’s swallowed glass, rough and strained, unsteady.

“Duke, please! It’s Wade!” the voice wails. “Duke, I can hear him.” Duke presses his hands over his ears. “Duke, he’s coming! Duke, please!” Audrey presses her hands over Duke’s too. His shoulders shake as Jennifer’s voice continues to shriek in the woods.

“Hello?” comes another voice. One Audrey hasn’t heard in ages. “Is anyone there? My name is…” the voice trails off like it’s forgotten.

“Audrey,” Audrey whispers. “Your name is Audrey Parker,” she answers under her breath.

“Where am I? What- what’s happening? Hello? Is anyone there?”

Audrey bites her lip, hard. She won’t answer the thing in the woods. She won’t. Under her hands Duke cringes and Audrey remembers how upset he was when he brought Audrey Two back to the station.

“Please! I don’t know where I am! Is anyone here? Can anyone help me? Hello- Oh! Oh no! Help! Someone! Help!” the voice cuts off abruptly, only to be replaced.

“Audrey?”

William’s head goes up sharply in surprise.

“Charlotte?” Audrey breathes.

Nathan wraps his arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side.

“Audrey? Where are you?” the voice calls.

Duke reaches over Nathan and squeezes her hand.

“It’s not her, Parker,” Nathan reminds her.

Audrey nods, tips her head back and blinks hard. She wants so badly for it to be her mother, to have someone else to help shoulder this burden, someone who knows about aether, who can help her build this new barn. She wants so badly to have back the woman she was just beginning to know. She has all the memories of Audrey Parker desperately wanting a mother and none of the memories of Mara growing up with Charlotte. How is that fair?

“Audrey! Help! Audrey he’s coming! It’s Croato-“ Charlotte’s voice cuts off on a scream. “He’s here, Audrey!” Charlotte’s voice is full of the fear she must have felt in her last moments. “Audrey, run!” she implores. “Don’t let him get you.”

It’s an effective ploy, Audrey’s whole body tenses with the need to run not from but towards.

Croatoan killed her mother.

He killed her son.

She wants desperately for him to be out there, to get her hands on him.

Audrey drops her forehead into the curve of Nathan’s neck, squeezes Duke’s hand.

“It’s not real,” she tells them. “I’m fine.”

In the woods Charlotte’s voice has taken on a hysterical quality, screaming like… like she’s being murdered. Audrey shudders.

A tear escapes, rolls down her cheek.

Nathan rounds on William.

“Why isn’t anyone calling for you?” he demands. “They’ve gone after each of us now, but no one’s called for you.”

William laughs and it is bitter, black as aether. “There’s no one to call for me anymore,” he says, defeat and pride warring in his voice.

The words have barely fallen from his lips when they hear a woman’s scream, not of fear but of rage. “William!” It is Audrey’s voice but not, the accent is wrong, the tone is wrong, it isn’t Audrey, it’s-

“Mara!” William shouts, turning toward the woods.

It’s as if the crocotta have heard, are determined to prove him wrong.

“William, help me!” The command is imperious; there is no doubt in that voice that it will be followed.

“Mara?” he says her name softly, like it’s his last hope.

He looks at Audrey. She holds his gaze steadily.

“You know it’s not her,” she warns.

“William! These fools have had me following you all day and my foot is caught and if you do not come out here and help me, I will find a duneyrr and feed you to it myself!”

William laughs, a wet laugh. “Not bad. Sounds just like her,” he says quietly, almost to himself.

“Mara!” he yells suddenly.

“William!” the voice answers. “Help me!”

“Mara, hold on!” he shouts.

Audrey braces herself to grab him but he doesn’t move from his seat. He closes his eyes and keeps yelling at the crocotta. “What are you doing?” Audrey demands.

“Mara, I’m coming!”

“William, help!”

“Stop it!” Audrey grabs his arms, gives him a shake.

William pays her no mind.

“Mara, hold on! I’m coming for you! I’ll get you out,” he continues shouting back and forth with the things in the woods. Audrey watches dumbfounded, she can see Nathan and Duke waiting a few feet behind, poised to act, but William doesn’t get up. He doesn’t move. He keeps answering the voice in the woods, shouting assurances.

“What are you doing?” Audrey shakes him harder, hands digging into his arms.

William pushes her off and Audrey lands on her ass in the dirt. Nathan steps forward but Audrey holds up a hand, holds him back.

“Stop,” Nathan commands and William ignores him totally.

“Mara!” he shouts just to hear it answer, “William!”

“Stop it! That’s not her! She’s gone!” Nathan storms past Audrey, shakes William, more violently than she did. “Stop it!” he orders. “That’s not her.”

William laughs and lets himself go limp, silent. He hangs his head in defeat.

In the forest the voice whispers, “William?”

And William doesn’t say another word.

Audrey sits as far away from him as she can in the clearing. Nathan and Duke join her, one on either side, her sentries, her boys. She swallows past the lump in her throat-- against all odds she has them both. She still has them both. She lays her head on Nathan’s shoulder, slides her hand into Duke’s, holds on.

The woods fill with yips and howls, the crocotta are excited, they enjoyed playing with William. They sound like they’ve had a feast on all the pain they’ve inflicted. Audrey burns with anger; she hates them, _all_ of them. She wants to make them pay for their meal.

“Lucy?” a voice calls. It belonged to a man in his twenties, strong and tall with blue eyes like his father.

“Lucy? It’s James! Can you hear me?” it calls.

Audrey claps a hand over her mouth to hold in the sob.

“Lucy!”

Audrey pushes away from Nathan and Duke, storms over to William.

“Does aether burn like oil?” she demands.

“What?” William looks bewildered, like she’s not speaking English anymore.

“Does. Aether. Burn?” she says the words slowly, each one like a shot.

In the woods James is yelling for Lucy, screaming for help.

“I’ve never tried. I mean it’s physical, it should,” William shrugs.

“Give me the aether you’re carrying,” she orders.

William opens his mouth, probably to deny it.

In the woods James starts shouting different titles, “Mom! Dad! Help me,” he pleads. “It hurts! It hurts so bad!”

William pulls a vial out of his pocket, tips a ball of aether from it into his palm.

Audrey grabs it and rises to her feet. She doesn’t worry that this is what woke Mara up the last time. She doesn’t think about the consequences. She can only think how dare they bring James into this! She closes her ears because she has to, ruthlessly clears her mind, spreads the black over her palm and reaches. It’s everywhere here. In the trees, in the ground, in the leaves. _Up_ she commands it and it rises. Sluggishly at first and then faster and faster to pool in front of her thick and black, roiling like a cloud before a storm. The feeling is heady, surging through her veins like electricity, lighting up all her senses as if she’s waking up for the first time. She’s powerful, she could move mountains, she could shape oceans. It feels _right_ and later she’ll think that’s sickening. Later she’ll think no one should be able to wield this amount of power. Right now she sinks into the certainty of her command of the storm. S he sweeps her arms out and sends the aether whipping through the woods in thin tendrils . It follows her command like an obedient dog, eager to please, stretching and twining around trunks and branches, thin black vines creating an all but invisible trap in the dark.

“A stick, I need fire,” she reaches out her clean hand for it blindly.

Duke presses the end of a burning twig into her fingers.

Audrey takes it and touches it to the aether. It goes up with a whoosh. The fire spreads greedily, orange eating away at the black. The flames rage through the woods and suddenly instead of James’ voice there are howls of pain and panic.

The howls do not go on long enough as far as she’s concerned.

They stand in silence; the four of them silhouetted by the fire behind them, listening to the pained yelps recede.

Finally, finally, the world goes quiet again. Audrey can hear the flicker of the flames from their fire, the pop as it consumes a log. A cool wind rises over the edge of the cliff.

Audrey takes a step and the world tilts sideways. All that power came from somewhere and it wasn’t just the aether. Duke’s hand grabs one elbow, Nathan’s the other. They ease her to the ground. Duke fetches the water bottle from his own pack and she takes it with trembling fingers.

“I’m alright,” she insists as they hover, even William. Audrey’s heart is pumping like the pistons on a train at full speed; she can’t quite catch her breath. Her lungs feels clogged, weighed down.

Nathan sits behind her, knees on either side of hers, braces her as she remembers how to breathe. She sucks in great lungfuls of air; it’s thick with the smoke of their fire and the stench of burned aether but Audrey cannot get enough. She gasps and shakes in the aftermath, the adrenaline flooding her system and making her sick to her stomach.

“Easy, Parker, easy,” Nathan encourages. “You did it, you made them pay,” he tells her, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. Audrey’s breath hitches and she stops, holds it, gets a hold of herself. She takes a long slow inhale, counting each breath the way she’d seen Duke do. Nathan rests his cheek against the crown of her head and it feels so much like home it brings fresh tears to Audrey’s eyes.

She really wants to go home.

Duke takes the bottle from her and dampens the edge of a shirt from his pack. He wipes her face with steady hands. The cloth comes away black, she must have gotten soot or something on her cheeks. Duke takes her hand, the one that was coated in aether, and turns it over to wipe it clean, cradling it in his big palm. But it’s empty,--no trace just her pink palm with the firelight playing over it.

“It,” her voice croaks and she clears her throat, tries again. “It got used up,” she explains.

Duke nods. He gets it.

“Okay?” he asks.

Audrey nods, feels her hair catch in Nathan’s stubble and manages half a smile.

“Better than them,” she answers.

Duke gives a wry laughs and nods, squeezing her hand.

“Why don’t you try and get some rest, Parker?” Nathan suggests. She can feel his voice as well as hear it, low and rumbling in his chest. “Think we’re safe for now,” he says and there is a laugh somewhere in his voice too.

It makes Audrey smile.

“Bet you’re wishing we’d let Dwight talk us into bringing those sleeping bags,” Duke jokes.

Audrey chuckles softly and nods, her hair falling into her face.

Nathan drops his legs and pats his thigh.

Audrey relocates, stretching out and resting her head on Nathan’s leg for a pillow.

Duke watches with a speculative look on his face.

“What, you want a spot too?” Nathan teases.

They all three laugh quietly. It feels good, it feels normal, when Audrey was sure there would never be normality again.

Audrey leans up on her elbow and waves Duke over, uses his hand to tug him down to sit next to Nathan.

“Stay, okay?” she asks him. She doesn’t want him to go off on his own again. She doesn’t want him to sit and try to wipe away the voices by himself because he thinks he has to.

Duke makes a face but nods.

Audrey curls onto her side and puts her head down. Nathan’s leg is warm and she can feel the rise and fall of his stomach against the back of her head as he breathes. She catches William’s eye across the clearing. He gives her a single nod of acknowledgement. She closes her eyes, _just for a few minutes_ she promises herself. She hears the boys murmuring quietly to each other it’s a comforting sound. Exhaustion sneaks up and sweeps her away.


	8. Spidren

The boys are asleep when Audrey wakes to the dim grey light of another day in the Void. William is awake on the other side of the clearing. He doesn’t look like he’s slept a wink. She turns carefully over, the cold from the ground has leeched all of the heat out of her, she’s stiff and sore as she sits up. Duke’s head is thrown back against the tree trunk behind him, mouth open. Nathan’s chin is resting on his chest, and he’s snoring. It makes Audrey smile as she stands and rubs warmth back into her arms. If they get out of this alive, she promises herself, she is never going camping again.  
   
In the light of day, Audrey can see the cliff looks out across a wide valley full of the same awful black trees they’ve been picking their way through. There’s so much flatland here, it’s so different from the Haven she knows with its softly rolling hills. To the south, she can see a monstrous cloud moving across the plain. It roils like a cartoon fight, like something trapped under an oily black blanket, exclamations of lightning erupting to strike out at the ground below, a thick grey curtain of rain stretches from it to the floor. Audrey tracks its path for a few moments, it’s moving at right angles to them thankfully. She looks behind the cloud and finds the trees that are so plentiful here have been reduced to nothing but stumps from the rain.  
   
Audrey shudders and looks away.  
   
William is watching her, sees her reaction and shrugs as if to say ‘that’s how life is out here.’  
   
She hates it, him, the void, all of it.  
   
Even worse, she has to pee. She makes a face but there’s no helping it.  
   
“I’m gonna… I’ll be right back,” she tells William who smirks at her. He’s clearly got an idea of where she’s going.  
   
Audrey walks as far into the woods as she dares and finds a likely tree to squat behind. She hates peeing in the woods. She’s definitely never going camping again.  
   
All around she can see traces of her fire last night at about knee high where the aether burned patches in the trees, blackened leaves. There is the corpse of something that might have been dog-like in life, huge, at least three feet tall at the shoulder if it were standing, the narrow muzzle burnt away by the flames leaving only sharp white incisors. Audrey resists the urge to aim a sharp kick at the jawbone and watch it fly off into the brush.  
  
Instead she looks down at her hands in the dull light of day. Her palms are pink and aether-free. More importantly they are still hers. She didn’t feel Mara waking up last night. She felt nothing but vindication at the howls. She stuffs her hands in her pockets when she catches them trembling with relief. It really is just her in here. However Charlotte melded them, she’s in charge. _She’s still Audrey Parker._ She hadn't considered the consequences of using the aether last night, she'd just acted.  But she's still here. _She's still Audrey Parker._   Her knees will not support the relief flooding her veins. She sits with a thump on the muddy ground, puts her head down and takes the slow, deep breaths Duke would recommend.  
  
From the corner of her eye she watches aether drip slowly from the point of a leaf, like morning dew. It felt so natural to use it last night. It felt _good_ the way a sculptor or a painter feels with the right tools in their hands: confident, eager, _powerful_. She wonders if it's the same sort of high Duke feels when he comes in contact with Troubled blood. She'd felt strong, limitless, like the only thing holding her back was herself. It felt _right_ , the only thing that's ever felt as right is curing a Troubled person. She knows William was pleased, he knows exactly what a slippery slope it can be. She may not have woken Mara but that won't mean anything if she puts herself down the path of becoming her once more. It would be so easy to become dependent on the aether.

She's pragmatic enough to know she can't swear it off. The Void is a dangerous place. She may have to use it again while they're here. The thought puts a knot of dread in her stomach. Audrey breathes out through her nose and then gets to her feet. Sitting here worrying isn't getting them home any faster either. She'll burn that bridge when she comes to it she decides, brushing off the back of her jeans.  
   
She’s almost back to camp when she sees the man standing between two of the trees. He’s just standing there, hands in his pockets, staring off into the distance.  
   
“Hey!” she calls before she can think better of announcing her presence to the stranger.  
   
He turns and smiles at her.  
   
“Well hello there,” he says, normal as you please.  
  
He’s not particularly tall, 5”8 or 5”9, mid-sixties she thinks, going soft around the edges, barrel chested and clean shaven. Audrey feels like she’s seen him before though she has no idea where.  
   
“What are you doing here?” she demands, hand going to the place her gun should be. She curses herself for not wearing it. Who’d’ve thought she’d need to threaten strangers out here in the Void. It wouldn't work anyway she comforts herself.  
   
“I’m out for a walk, I suppose you’d say,” the man smiles and it puts all of Audrey’s hackles up. She really wishes she had her weapon, even if it doesn't work.  
   
“Where to?” Audrey asks, with as casual interest as she can manage.  
   
He hesitates as if he’s not sure what the answer is anymore. “I’m collecting a few things so I can get home,” he tells her finally.  “I’m hoping to reunite with my daughter,” he sounds more sure of that, his eyes come alive when he talks about his daughter. “She was very ill when she was young and I… I cured her but then my work took me away again. I miss her very much.”  
   
“Where’s home?” Audrey asks.  
   
Before the man can answer Audrey’s attention is pulled to the woods over his shoulder.  
   
“Sir, can you step this way, please?” she directs, the words coming automatic in her cop voice. Don’t panic the civilian, get them to step away from the threat.  
   
Audrey doesn’t get a chance to find out if the man will look over his shoulder and see the beast because another drops on him from overhead, squashing him flat. It’s a spider the size of a bear, its twitchy legs long and covered in thick hair and that was awful enough to have Audrey’s stomach clenching in revulsion but the worst part is the blonde head growing out of the spider’s body belongs to a human. It smiles at her with a mouth full of pointy teeth just as Audrey hears a “shhh” sound from behind her. She turns and ducks, barely in time to avoid a glob of webbing shot at her from the spinneret of a spider that is easily twice the size of a bear.  
   
When Audrey can spare a glance for the man the spider pounced on, he’s being dragged off into the woods by the spider that landed on him, his arms flopping loosely over his head. He’s dead, she thinks. He’s dead. A fourth spider swings down. It chitters something at her in a language she doesn’t understand but she recognizes hunger when she sees it.  
  
Audrey turns and runs.  
   
She crashes through underbrush and patches of muck that splatter her jeans, heart pounding so hard it feels like it might escape her chest. She curses the crocotta because she can’t call for Nathan and the others to run. The only thing in her favor is the spider things are too big to pass easily between the trees. They have to pick and choose their path and so does Audrey, she hustles between the narrowest spaces between the black trunks. When she bursts into the clearing Nathan and Duke are already awake and on their feet. They’re staring worriedly into the woods, obviously looking for her.  
  
“Time to go!” she announces. “The giant spiders invited themselves over for breakfast and we don’t want to be around when they get here!”  
   
“Spidren?” William’s eyes go huge and scared. Audrey liked it better when there was nothing that scared William.  
   
From the wood comes that chittering sound again but nothing bursts into the clearing. They stand, hearts pounding, staring into the trees. Audrey can see movement further back. There’s a hiss and Audrey spots a spidren shooting webbing from one trunk to another. A little further to the left she glimpses the head of another, its hair glints golden in the weak sunlight. He too is spurting webbing.  
   
“They’re boxing us in,” Nathan warns but Audrey already knows.  
   
“Welcome to my parlor,” Duke says dryly. He’s picked up one of the extra branches they collected for firewood, is hefting it like a club.  
   
“Do we run or do we try to fight them off?” Audrey asks William, hating that she has to ask him but he has all the experience here. Audrey’s brain ticks over options in the long moments William takes to decide. Could they make it down the cliff somehow? But spiders can climb so that’s probably not the smartest plan. Could she do something with aether? She’d just promised herself not to use it as a crutch but...  
   
“We’ll run for it,” William declares. “Stick to the thickest trees and do not stop. Don’t stop for anything once we start. Wait for my signal,” he orders.  
   
“What are you going to do?”  
   
William reaches into his pocket for the vial of aether, he’s restocked it from somewhere already for the morning. He smears some on his hand and suddenly Sinister and Heavy are there.  
   
“Giving the spidren something else to chase after,” William tells her and without a word Sinister and Heavy break from the clearing. Audrey knows now how William has survived for so long here in the Void. It’s a good plan.  
   
Sinister and Heavy go crashing through the brush, making a lot of noise to attract attention. Audrey holds her breath for seven long seconds before there's an angry chittering, then the sound of a large body moving away from them.  
   
They run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spidren are lifted shamelessly from Tamora Pierce's Tortall universe which I highly recommend if you like kickass heroines who do not allow whining.


	9. The Dark Patch

Trees whizz by.

Audrey almost gets caught up on a fallen log but she sees it at the last minute, hurdles it, keeps running.

The air is cold, it burns when she inhales, but she cannot stop running. Her heart is beating so fast she can feel it in her fingertips. Adrenaline floods her system til she feels like throwing up, and still she runs.

 _Get away, get away, get away,_ the voice in her head chants.

Ahead of them William shouts but Audrey can’t see him. Did he fall?

She finds out why three steps later when the world suddenly goes black. Not dark, but black, pitch black, she can’t even see her hand in front of her face. She can't stop, has too much momentum, it's four, five, six terrifying steps later when she manages to halt her forward movement. Something’s happened. She’s been struck blind somehow,. Cold fear unlike her previous terror of the spidren rushes down her spine like ice. It saps her strength, her legs feel weak like jelly.

Then William’s words come back to her.

The first thing she does is shout - “Stop! Nathan! Duke! Don’t come any closer!” - but there’s no answer.

A dark patch William had called it. Audrey turns and takes six steps in the opposite direction anyway. Nothing.

“William?” she calls and keeps calling even as she takes six more steps, sill nothing!

The next step stubs her toe on a tree and that starts a noise that makes her want to crawl out of her own skin. It sounds like the trees are screaming. Cicadas, her mind supplies, but this is so much louder than any other cicada she’s ever heard.

Under the screaming of the trees she hears Nathan calling for her and her knees go weak with relief.

“Nathan! Don’t come any closer, it’s a dark patch!” she shouts, stepping toward his voice, hoping against hope that she can use that to get her out.

Her outstretched hands find an elbow and then she’s in Nathan’s arms pressed against his chest where his heart beats a wild tattoo against her. “I got you, Parker,” he murmurs into her hair. Audrey doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry that he’s here. He could die in here. So easily.

“Nathan? Audrey?”

It’s Duke’s voice and she and Nathan shout until she feels Duke’s big hand land on her shoulder, fingers curving tightly around it. There’s tension in his hand that Audrey well understands. She reaches up and grabs hold of it, holding onto him maybe tighter than she should but she’s grateful he’s found them.

“Duke?” Nathan asks, worry in his voice.

“It’s me,” Duke assures him, Audrey cannot see but she feels Nathan’s arm jerk and knows that Duke has found Nathan’s shoulder, is shaking it to assure his friend that he’s here.

“Stay close,” Nathan instructs.

Duke huffs out a sarcastic laugh, “and here I was going to go explore the wild world of being blind on my own.”

“Where’s William?” Nathan asks.

“Here,” comes his voice, weary and defeated.

“What do we do? Should we keep trying to run?” Audrey demands.

“No, the spidren are smart enough not to come in here,” William's laugh is a cold and brittle thing. “The good news is they’re not going to bother us now, the bad news is who knows where this patch lets out or what’s in it with us.”

Audrey feels the cold hand of fear trace its fingers up her spine. She wishes fiercely for her gun, night vision glasses, something!

_The only way out of a dark patch is through._

They organize themselves so they’re each holding onto someone else, single file.

“Like playing train,” Audrey offers and the boys laugh.

They walk, hands on each other’s shoulders. William in the lead, then Audrey with her hand on his back. Nathan’s got his hand in the dip between Audrey’s neck and shoulder so he can feel her skin. Duke holds on to Nathan’s shoulder. They creep carefully forward while the trees scream.

If she felt exposed on the plain where they’d exited the thinny this is a dozen times worse. She can hear things moving in the brush, can feel eyes on her but she can’t see a damn thing. It’s worse for Nathan she knows, so much worse. There’s tension in his fingers and he twitches at every new noise but he's holding it together, there's trust in the fingers on her shoulder too. Audrey isn’t too steady herself as she edges forward but they're depending on her so she can't freak out no matter that any new noise could be something creeping up on them.

They walk. William curses whenever his feet find an obstacle before the stick in his hands can. The impression she had yesterday, of being very small mice in a field with a hawk above it, grows. Audrey wishes it would attack. She hates this. This not knowing. Stumbling in the dark. At least if they were attacked she could do something besides shuffle forward into the unknown. She can’t even hear anything over the crunch of the dead leaves they trod underfoot and the damn cicadas or whatever they are here are turned up to twelve.

Why won’t they just stop!

A few minutes later she realizes she doesn’t want to hear if anything’s in there with them when the shhhing sound of something slithering through the leaves reaches her ears. It sounds huge, solid and strong from the way it snaps branches in its path. Under her hand William’s shoulder has gone hard with tension. "Stop,” he murmurs low and scared. They do. Standing still and listening as the thing slithers on and on, it must be at least twenty feet long. Audrey puts her free hand up to curl around Nathan’s fingers as it draws even with them. She has no idea if the thing even knows they’re there or not, no idea what she’ll do if it attacks. It is an awful, helpless feeling. All she can do is regulate her breathing, make it as quiet as she can manage in hopes it won’t hear them.

The snake thing, whatever it is, outpaces them after another minute or so, headed slightly to the left. Audrey lets out a shaky breath.

“William?” she whispers once they can’t hear it any more.

“I don’t know,” is his answer before she can voice the question.

Something small lands on Audrey’s bare hand. She wriggles her fingers to dislodge it and it goes. It lands again and this time it bites, a sharp sting. Audrey cannot help the gasp. She slaps at her hand and it comes away sticky. She shudders and flicks her fingers to get the body off it.

“You okay, Parker?” Nathan asks, voice carefully neutral.

“Just a mosquito,” she tells him, though her hand throbs like no mosquito bite ever has.

Behind him Duke laughs. “Of course with all the hellish beasts in here there’d have to be mosquitoes,” he drawls.

They all laugh and it’s good, it feels really good to laugh even in the middle of all this awful.

The second bug lands on Audrey’s cheek, the sting comes almost before she feels it land.

Ahead of her William flinches under her hand and Duke lets out a startled cry a moment later.

“What is it?” Nathan demands.

“Bugs, damnit! Nathan, put up your hood,” Audrey orders, even as she feels a third bite on the top of her ear. It almost burns now. She can hear Duke and William slapping at their own selves.

“We have to move, fast, don’t let go,” she instructs. Nathan squeezes her shoulder to tell her he understands.

William hurries as best he can and now Audrey’s stubbing her toes into things, tripping over roots, and grazing her elbows on trees they pass, once a branch scratches her cheek but nothing is as bad as the stings that are coming fast and furious now. She can feel the bugs flying around her hair, her neck.

What if they’re poisonous?

“Nathan, you’ve got to wave them off,” Duke scolds, worry thick in his voice, “you’re getting bitten too much.”

“Trying!” Nathan grunts out, and Audrey can hear that his teeth are clenched.

The buzzing gets louder and louder as more of the creatures are drawn either to the sound of the hive or the smell of blood. Audrey can feel a thin bead of blood from a bite near her hairline sliding down her face. Ahead of her she can feel William wildly waving his arms around him, trying to dislodge the bugs. He runs and Audrey hurries but she can’t go fast enough, she can’t leave Nathan and Duke behind.

“William, stop!” she calls but he doesn’t.

“This way!” he shouts. “Just keep moving forward.”

The buzzing intensifies, one crawls under her sleeve and bites her wrist. Audrey smashes it with grim satisfaction.

“We’re going to have to run for it,” Audrey says, grabbing Nathan’s hand. “Grab, Duke and hold on,” she tells him.

They run, crashing into and off of things, getting scratched. Audrey almost goes down stumbling over a tree branch but Nathan drags her back up. They splash through mud. She can feel it splattering her jeans, cold and wet. And all the while the bugs are there taking nips out of them. Audrey’s chest hurts from how hard her heart is beating, her already tired legs are burning from the new race. The straps of her backpack are cutting into her shoulders. Her throat is dry and she desperately wants a sip of water. How hard can it be to outrun a bunch of bugs she wonders.

Her next step takes her into light so bright it hurts her eyes. She throws her hands up over her face with a cry.

Nathan stumbles into her back a second later, grabbing her shoulders to steady her. She can see his fingers on her sleeves, see the ground and the sky and weak sunshine on the awful dead landscape and her chest is tight but now with relief. They’re out of the dark patch. She turns and throws her arms around him forgetting the bugs for a moment.

Then she pulls back slapping at herself in a panic before Nathan’s hands are grabbing hers.

“They’re gone, Parker,” he tells her kindly, “all gone.”

Audrey snaps her head around but he’s right. There’s nothing except sickly void sunshine and more dying trees.

There are no bugs.

And then what else is missing dawns on her slowly. There is no Duke either.

“Where’s Duke?” she asks Nathan voice low and intense.

Nathan looks startled and spins around to look behind him.

The forest behind them looks just like the woods they’re standing in. The sunlight filtering down creates shadows but it’s certainly not pitch dark.

“He was with me!” Nathan insists. “He had a hold of the back of my jacket just a minute ago!”

“Duke?” Audrey shouts with a sinking heart.

“Duke!” Nathan takes up the call.

There’s a rustle behind them and Audrey spins, heart in her throat, maybe it’s him. Oh god, please let it be him.

“Oh, good, you made it. I’d’ve had a devil of a time finding the thinny by my lonesome.”

It’s William. He’s got a welt on one cheek and is limping, probably from his mad flight through the woods. Audrey is not the least bit sympathetic. She folds her arms across her chest.

“Have you seen Duke?” Nathan asks, looking through the trees behind William as if Duke might materialize.

“You lost your Crocker in the dark patch?” William tuts and shakes his head.

Audrey’s nails cut crescents into her palms with how tight her fists curl. Nathan lunges towards William and she puts a hand out, holding him back. Now is not the time.

“Look for him later because the dark patch did us a favor, the remnants of the barn are about twenty feet that way.” William points back the way he came.

That stops them cold.

“Go on, Parker,” Nathan suggests finally. “I’ll stay here and wait for him.”

Audrey hesitates. She shouldn’t leave Nathan here alone. Leaving him with William is almost as bad, maybe even worse. She can’t leave Duke behind either.

“He can’t have been far behind us,” Nathan insists. “I know he had a hold on my jacket maybe a minute before we got out.”

She watches William watch Nathan as he speaks, and knows from the way he says nothing that it could take Duke a hell of a lot longer to get out of there. She wonders if there’s a possibility he might even come out somewhere entirely else.

Her stomach plummets all the way into her toes.

There’s nothing she can do here. Going back into the dark patch, if it’s even an option at this point, wouldn’t be helpful.

Nathan gets his hands on her elbows, pulling her in. “We need the controller, Parker,” he tells her quietly. “If you get it, all we have to do is find Duke and then we can go home,” he promises.

Tears burn Audrey’s eyes at his words. Home. God how she wants to go home. She grabs his hand, squeezes. “If you go back in there to look for him when I’m gone Nathan Wuornos, I will feed you to the spidren myself,” she threatens.

Nathan huffs out a self-conscious laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I mean it!”

“I will wait for you to come back before going into the creepy dark patch,” he promises.

Audrey places her hand on Nathan’s chest, feels the reassuring thump of his heart under her fingers and gives herself a minute to feel scared.

Where the hell is, Duke, she wonders desperately.

They need the controller. Duke might be back by the time she gets it and then they can all just go home. Haven may be covered by a magical shroud but there are bathrooms and beds and no spidren.

Audrey nods finally. Her minute is over.

She goes up on her toes to kiss Nathan, his lips are dry but warm under hers. She curls her fingers around the back of his neck and presses her forehead to his. “I’ll be back as quick as I can,” she promises.

“Duke ‘n I’ll be waiting,” he replies and she knows he’s putting all that surety in his voice to bolster her confidence. The grim lines around his mouth and eyes give away that he knows just like she does, that every moment that passes means the chances of Duke coming out of the dark patch on his own gets lower and lower.

“Drink some water, okay?” she insists.

Nathan laughs. “Sure, Parker.”

Audrey tears herself away and nods to William.

“Let’s go,” she says curtly.


	10. Audrey The White

The trip through the forest is a blur. The only thing she really notices is the burn of the insect bites on her hands. She finds herself absently rubbing at them as she rushes along.

“Stop messing with them,” William scolds, “they’ll stop hurting in a little while if you leave them alone. We’re lucky those weren’t gar flies.”

“Gar flies?” she cannot help but ask.

“Gar are hairy humanoid looking predators,” he tells her in what sounds suspiciously like a National Geographic voice. “Huge leathery wings. Lots of sharp teeth. Some have long tails some have short. They have crappy eyesight so they use the flies to hunt. The flies swarm their prey, their bites are sharp and sting horribly,” his eyes flick to the welt on her wrist as he lets her digest the idea that it hurts worse than those. “So once they’ve flushed the screaming deer, or human, out into the open the gar can pounce and rip em to shreds. When they’re done the gar smears some of the innards on its chest and lets the flies feast. The good thing is long tailed gar are dumb so if you kill the flies you can escape.”

Audrey shudders at the thought. “How are short tailed gar smart?”

William smiles. It is not comforting. “Short tailed gar count their flies. You kill em the gar knows you're there and comes looking for you.”

Audrey is so distracted by William’s tale that she almost misses the detritus of the collapsed barn entirely. It’s only the sight of the Oatley Tap Room sign wedged up against a tree that catches her eye. Her heart leaps and the taste of whiskey coats the back of her throat. She can feel Lexie’s rings on her fingers as she puts her hand up to cover her gasp. She wonders if the real Lexie Dewitt has a friend named Rhonda. She hopes they are both okay and far away from Haven.

“Do you know what the controller looks like?” Audrey demands of William.

He scoffs. “Not like anything from their small little world,” he informs her.

Audrey grimaces and approaches the wreckage carefully, a little afraid the barn will recognize her and rematerialize around her. Nothing like that happens though. Something bright winks at her from halfway beneath a log and her breath catches in her chest. Her fingers sift through the rotting leaves to wrap around the middle of a hand sized crystal. It looks like a giant gem, so much for nothing like anything from earth she wants to turn and tell William. This is it, her gut says as her hand closes on it. This is too easy, it warns, even as she rises to her feet.

The resulting flash of light makes her almost drop the controller to throw up her hands, shielding her eyes. She thinks it’s a bomb for a moment, but the light dims, fades, and when she can see again she’s looking at her own face.

Whatever the thing wearing her face is, it has white hair and a white dress and a foreboding expression. Audrey Parker had a housemate right out of college who had been obsessed with the Lord of the Rings movies. The thing's sudden appearance and the white hair all put her in mind of a scene from the movie.

“Who are you?” Audrey demands, disappointment and anger building in her stomach. She doesn’t have time for this. The longer she leaves Nathan alone the more likely he is to do something stupid. The longer they spend here the farther away Duke could be by now.

“Stand back,” Audrey the White replies.

“We come in peace,” William drawls and Audrey restrains herself from smacking him.

“What do you want?” Audrey the White asks, not put off by his joking. Her voice is a strange monotone and Audrey wonders if she’s a construct like the barn, a hologram or something.

“I need the controller from the old barn,” Audrey explains. “We need to stop the Troubles before Croatoan escapes the Void and ends Haven for good.” She feels ridiculous, standing in the woods, talking to a robot version of herself begging for alien technology to solve her magical problems before the great big evil takes over her town. How is this her life? It sounds like a video game. Wasn’t it just yesterday she was drinking at the Gull and showing off Nathan’s new socks to Dwight?

“What you seek is incredible power,” Audrey the White intones. “That can only be given to the right person, otherwise it must be destroyed.”

“How can I prove to you that I’m the right person?” Audrey demands, frustration seeping into her voice though she didn’t invite it.

“Answer this: why was the barn created?”

“To punish Mara for creating the Troubles,” William answers wearily, it is a fact in his worldview, something he says automatically.

“That answer is incorrect.” Audrey the White announces and William’s eyes go comically wide. “The controller must be destroyed,” Audrey the White continues dispassionately and launches into a countdown from ten. The crystal in Audrey’s hand heats up quickly.

“Wait!” Audrey’s heart lurches even as she protests. “That’s not _my_ answer! The barn wasn’t created to punish Mara. Charlotte sai…” She catches herself at the last moment, it wouldn’t do to answer with what Charlotte said, this programme was looking for the right answer. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words though. Instead she chose,

“Charlotte created it to save Mara.”

Audrey the White tilts her head, attention caught.

“Elaborate,” she says and Audrey can breathe again. Also, wow, is it weird to see her own gestures on this thing.

She thinks hard for a second. Thinks of what she knows of Charlotte. She programmed this bot standing before her after all. Had Charlotte genuinely believed she was helping her daughter? She had waited more than five hundred years hoping Mara could be changed, swayed, returned to the daughter she’d cared for. There are some things you can’t come back from, Audrey understands this even as she opens her mouth and says what the bot needs to hear.

“The Barn was meant to give Mara a second chance, to let her remember who she used to be, to give her a chance to change. Deep down Mara was a good person, she cared about other people. If she’d remembered that she would have wanted to right the wrongs she’d made. She’d have been strong enough to save Haven.”

Except Charlotte had never really meant for Mara to save Haven. Audrey shuddered to think how close she had come to actually ending it. But Audrey was sure that wasn’t the song Charlotte had been singing to the barn.

“That is correct,” Audrey the White answers, proving Audrey's theory, but the crystal remains heated. The hologram inclines its head curiously. “But you are Audrey Parker, an overlay, how can you be right person?”

What made her the right person? Audrey thought of wanting to kick the crocotta skull that morning, Mara would have followed through on the impulse and sent it flying without a second thought.

“Charlotte realized Mara and I were a part of each other." Audrey glances at William warily. She wishes he wasn't here for this. She doesn't know how she feels about what Charlotte did, yet. She hasn't even talked about the meshing with Nathan. "I was the part Mara was missing.” And no matter how hard she may have pretended otherwise during the split there had been a part of her missing. That part had been Mara. “Charlotte melded us so we would be whole. I am all the things Mara used to be. I am the part that remembers how to care about other people and I have Mara’s strength and determination in me.” Audrey gives the bot the truth with her next words. “I’m not a copy, not an overlay, I am Mara and she is me." Audrey hates that it's the truth, hates that she feels whole now in a way she hadn't before, but there are lots of things in her life that she hates and has to live with. "And because of that I am the right person.” She holds up the crystal. “I’m strong enough to save Haven and I need the controller to do that.”

She waits, heart in her throat, as the bot considers her words.

“You are the right person,” Audrey the White proclaims with a smile and winks out of existence.

The crystal goes back to being slightly cool. It is heavy in Audrey’ hand as it should be, the fate of her town lies within it now. They have done what they came into the Void to do but she cannot feel relieved just yet.

William gives her a cocky grin. “See, told you, no sweat, right?”

Audrey turns on her heel and heads back to where she left Nathan.

\------

He’s gone when they get back.

Of course he’s gone when they get back.

A fierce lump settles itself in Audrey’s throat choking back hysterical screaming and tears.

Then she spots the drag marks in the leaves. He didn’t leave on his own. Something carried Nathan off.

Audrey feels herself go cold.

She reaches out a hand to William wordlessly and he puts another roll of aether in her palm without saying anything in return. Distantly she wonders how many times he’d done that same thing for Mara. How many people they Troubled with this surgical precision?

Audrey wraps her aether black palm around the crystal and wills it to shine out like the sun. It glows, bright and fierce. She follows the drag marks where they lead right back into the dark patch. It shimmers like oil when she crosses the boundary, falls like there’s a roof over her head once she’s inside. She can see the sky through a thin veil of the same oily substance. The area inside the dark patch is nothing to look at, dead trees, a scattering of bushes with sickly yellow leaves, the white heads of mushrooms and the drag marks of Nathan’s boots.

As a nightmare world it’s underwhelming.

They skirt a precipice they must have avoided going over by inches the first time around. They can hear the scuttle of creatures fleeing the light as they traipse through. Audrey wonders where the mosquitoes are, where the giant snake thing they heard is, but they see neither. Even the cicadas are silent, their horrible screaming gone, leaving behind an eerily silent world where the only thing they can hear are their footsteps.

So far Nathan’s drag marks have obscured the tread of his kidnapper’s footprints. The boot mark that Audrey spies now is large enough to be Duke’s and her heart sinks. It could be his. If Duke had lost control again… if he’d hurt Nathan…

No. She can’t think like that.

Why drag him all this way if he’s already hurt him? But then why drag him back through the dark patch at all? If it’s not Duke then who is it?

She doesn’t say anything to William but she sees his eyes take in the new information.

The tracks lead out of the dark patch. When they step through the oily veil into real sunlight Audrey stumbles back a step thinking it’s too bright before she realizes what it is. Not the thin void sun, but what looks like her own midday sun hangs almost directly overhead. The air here smells sweet, almost overwhelmingly so. There are large healthy shrubs with purple flowers and a path made of smooth gray stones. The sky overhead is a pale, clear blue with cotton puffs of clouds slipping by. It looks absolutely normal and that above all else puts Audrey on edge.

“Who lives here?” Audrey asks William, voice barely held even.

William shakes his head but Audrey sees something in his eyes.

“Wait, okay? Don’t go any further. Let me call up Heavy for backup.” He actually sounds like he’s asking. He sounds worried now.

Along with the shrubs are trees, a whole orchard, apple and cherry it looks like. Everything is in season. There are bees buzzing among the flowers, and through the trees she can just see the thin plume of smoke coming from a chimney.

“Who lives here, William?” she asks once more.

William shakes his head again, pulling the aether vial from his pocket.

“You don’t know for sure, but you have an idea,” she accuses.

William shrugs but before she can question him further there’s a shout from further on down the path.

“Nathan!” she whispers. Duke's warning that Nathan died in the Void in his dream rings loud in Audrey's ears. It wasn't the picture of Haven in ruins that had made her blood run cold, it was the thought of Nathan dead. Audrey knows she shouldn’t, but the part that’s just Audrey Parker cares too much, overrides Mara’s self-preservation.

She runs.


	11. Croatoan

                               

 

She hears William curse behind her but she doesn’t stop.

She’s smart enough to stay to the side of the path where the tall shrubs and trees might hide her. She runs on the balls of her feet to keep her footsteps from echoing. She slows before she gets to the bend in the path, sticks her head around first. The narrow pathway opens out into a wide lane, with a house at the end made of grey stone with a moss covered roof. A stout round lighthouse tower grows out the side closest to the cliff. Below the cliff the sea winks and sparkles in the bright midday sunlight.

The strangest thing is not the absolutely normal looking house and gardens. No, the strangest thing is on the path is the man she saw this morning being hauled off by the spidren.

“You!” she exclaims.

“Me!” he returns, with a pleased smile.

“You survived? How?”

“Well, now, that is a rather surprising tale of derring-do and adventure. Would you like to hear about it over a cup of tea?” he offers.

“Stop right there,” William says coldly. He gets his hand around Audrey’s bicep, pulling her back a step. If he were a dog all his hackles would be up and his teeth would be bared. “She may not recognize you, but I know exactly who you are.”

“Who am I?” the man asks, kindly, blue eyes twinkling with some inner laughter.

“Croatoan,” William pronounces. The word falls like a brick between them.

Audrey looks at the man before her. Really looks. His hair is mostly grey, he’s got crow’s feet around his eyes, he’s got a paunch. He’s wearing a frayed cardigan for crying out loud. This is the demon that’s going to wipe out Haven.

William’s hand on her arm trembles faintly.

“You know the name, my dear?” Croatoan asks her and his tone is no less kind than before. “It’s one of many, I’ve had. I’d like to tell you about them if you’ll permit me.”

“And why should she listen to you?” William snarls.

“Because he has Nathan and Duke,” Audrey says softly, her stomach sinking.

Croatoan smiles, a proud smile. “That’s my girl. Always thinking.”

Audrey shivers as if she could shrug off those words.  “I’m not your anything!” she snaps, “but I’ll hear you out.”

Croatoan smiles and gestures down the path ahead of him.

“Why did you take Nathan and Duke?” Audrey asks.

Croatoan smiles again.

He does that a lot. It is grating on her nerves.

“Let’s just say it was a matter of expediency,” he says mildly.

Audrey grinds her teeth.

“But we’ll talk more of it at the house,” he insists, gesturing to the path again.

Audrey and William walk two steps ahead of Croatoan, though it goes against everything in her to give this man her back. He killed Charlotte. He killed _James_. She doesn’t want to go have tea with him, she wants to scoop out his heart with a dull spoon. She wants him to pay for everyone he’s taken away from her, all the misery he’s caused.

The anger thrums in her veins and while anger makes Nathan careless, it sharpens Audrey. She sees the places where the leaves on the apple trees are wrong, the places where the flowers on the shrubs have come in strange. The sweetness in the air is only masking the stench of aether in the ground, like air freshener sprayed in a dirty bathroom. The cherries are so dark red they are almost black, aether showing up there again.

Something crashes in the woods and Heavy bursts onto the path in front of Croatoan, who jerks back, almost falling on his ass. Heavy menaces the man, looming tall and dangerous over him. Croatoan looks at the behemoth of a man and starts to laugh. He turns to William.

“Is this one of your playthings? Have you been escaping me so easily? Why William, I’m ashamed.” Croatoan stretches out a hand covered in aether, Audrey has no idea where it came from but there it is and Heavy… he folds, down, contorting and screaming in pain until a man no longer stands on the path before them but a dog, black and shaggy. It lays on the path its paws twitching for a horrible moment.

Then it is still.

And then it disappears altogether.

“I wouldn’t recommend you trying that again, William. My will is much stronger than yours.” Croatoan turns his back on them and continues walking at a sedate pace.

Audrey glances at William but he looks straight ahead, no trace of expression on his face.

 _How did he do that?_ she wants to ask. Instead she bites her tongue and bides her time.

 

They turn a corner and her heart leaps when she spots Nathan and Duke in the front yard and then falls again when she notes Duke’s stance. He’s not standing beside Nathan. He’s guarding him.

Audrey doesn’t have to wait for him to turn to know what color his eyes will be.

“Audrey,” Nathan calls and the relief in his voice is palpable even from this far away. It hits her hard, guilt and shame welling deep. She wishes she were the cavalry right now. She has no idea what she’s doing or how she’s going to get them out of this. She ran right into danger like a fool. There’s no time for self pity though. She’s damn well going to do _something_ . Nathan is _hers_ . Duke is _hers_ . Haven is _hers_. And this creep isn’t taking anything else from her.

“Nathan, are you okay?”

He shrugs in that infuriating laconic way he has that says ‘you’d know better than me’ without saying a word.

“Who’s this?” He asks instead, jerking his chin at the man behind Audrey.

“Our host,” she says dryly. “Nathan Wuornos, meet Croatoan.”

Nathan immediately makes a move towards him that Duke counters, putting himself bodily between Nathan and the monster from the Void. That is something she’d expect. She’s seen Duke throw himself between Nathan and harm more times than she’s willing to count. But right now he’s facing the wrong way.

He’s put himself between Croatoan and Nathan, and Nathan’s the one he’s guarding against.

It sucks all the air out of Audrey’s lungs like a punch.

“Now, now,” Duke drawls and it grates in her ears like nails on a chalkboard. His voice is all wrong. There’s none of Duke’s easy warmth or comfortable humor; it’s precise and dry and smooth like powder. It fills Audrey’s stomach with knots. This isn’t the aether-drunk, feral Duke they’d met in the forest either. This is something different. Something horrible and _controlled_.

“Is that any way to treat our,” Duke pauses, “host” he finishes, using Audrey’s word.

“Thank you, Mr. Crocker,” Croatoan says affably.

“My father taught me you don’t use company manners with murderers,” Nathan growls.

“Ah there’s that wit.” Croatoan smiles, sarcastic and biting. He gives Nathan a hard look.

Duke twists Nathan’s arm up behind his back. On anyone else it’d be painful, immobilizing. Nathan just continues to struggle against the hold.

“Duke!” Audrey protests as Nathan lurches forward from the force of his grip.

His hands on Nathan are cold, dispassionate. Even in the worst of their fights Audrey has never seen him treat Nathan this carelessly. Croatoan’s reins lay heavy and unmistakable on Duke. It’s not William’s ham-fisted fumblings earlier as he pulled and tugged on the aether in Duke’s veins. No, Croatoan’s control is more insidious, he’s clearly directing more than just Duke’s body but his mind. It is the single most horrific thing Audrey’s seen since entering the Void. Her hands burn with the need to stop it, to stop him.

Duke’s eyes are for Croatoan alone. He doesn’t even look at Nathan as he leans in to threaten him.

“I’d watch your mouth if I were you,” Duke says smoothly in Nathan’s ear and for a moment Audrey holds her breath wondering what he’ll do next. He’s too close. Audrey hates that. When has she ever had to worry about Nathan with Duke?  

“You always liked the funny guys,” Croatoan tells Audrey, not moving a muscle to tell Duke to let Nathan go. “Mara thought William was hilarious. I thought he was a moron.”

“My humor’s an acquired taste,” William puts in, eyes darting between Croatoan and Duke.

“Yes, well…” Croatoan flicks his gaze to William, dismisses him and turns back to Duke and Nathan. “Let him go, Mr. Crocker. We’ll talk about company manners later. Right now I’d like to talk with my daughter and I think that would go over better if she wasn’t worried about our friend the tin man.”

Audrey bristles at the insult.

“You’re the boss,” Duke agrees in that odd, dry, smooth voice, pushing Nathan away from him. Audrey thought the aether-sick Duke they’d faced down earlier was bad but this? Duke who prided himself on control, Duke who didn’t toady for anyone, standing here threatening Nathan and looking to Croatoan for approval? It makes her stomach turn. He would hate this.

Nathan stumbles when the pressure on his arm is released. Audrey darts forward and steadies him. His hands are warm where they grip her arms. Though the sun is shining full force down on them she only feels warm where he’s holding onto her. Nathan meets her eyes, worry clear in his gaze. She nods before stepping back.

Nathan rotates the abused joint and it appears to work just fine. Audrey’s muscles relax a little.

Duke stands impassively by, watching Nathan. When he catches Audrey looking at him he smiles. It is not a nice smile. It is not a Duke Crocker smile. Duke Crocker’s smiles have been putting her at ease since she woke up on his boat with no memory of how she got there. This smile puts her on edge--he reminds her of a shark with his empty black eyes and his wide white teeth. She hates it. She wants Duke’s quick grin when he’s being a shit and knows it, she wants the soft smile and warm eyes he saves for when he thinks no one is watching.

Audrey wonders if she could pull the aether out of Duke, make it a knife and stab Croatoan with it before he reacted. Maybe not. She’s getting all that aether out of Duke though. He’s never going to give her this shark smile again. He’s done being a puppet for this cause.

“Now you boys play nice here in the front yard. This is a private conversation. Family, only. You understand don’t you?” Croatoan gives them that awful benign smile again and gestures at William to join Nathan and Duke.

Audrey feels a surge of hope watching William make a show of reluctantly crossing the grass She keeps her expression as neutral as she can manage. Maybe he doesn’t know that William can pull Duke’s strings too.

“Oh, William?” Croatoan says. He holds out his hand. “The vial in your pocket if you please.”

William hesitates, glances to Audrey who nods grimly. He hands it over. For once Audrey hopes William is sneaky enough to have more stashed on him or to be able to get more from somewhere.

Croatoan gives William a hard look. “Sly as a fox that one, and twice as good at hiding,” he says mildly though his eyes are sharp as he pockets the vial of aether. “Who’d have thought there’d ever come a day when you strolled yourself into my front yard.” He smirks while William keeps his face neutral.

Croatoan abruptly looks away and gestures Audrey ahead of him.


	12. Joseph Cross

She follows Croatoan into the house. It’s comfortable inside. Her cop instincts catalogue the door behind her, three windows in this front room, and two more doors that offer room to run, possibly escape. The walls are white and clean. There’s furniture – wooden couches with blue cushions, a coffee table, a rug, a pair of bookshelves. A coffee cup has been forgotten on the table. It’s all so normal it makes Audrey want to scream.

“Sit, sit!” Croatoan insists. Audrey bypasses the living room for a seat at the dark wood dining table. She sits at the head of the table before he can. A petty gesture, but it makes her feel better nonetheless. Croatoan sits at her left, easing into the chair as if his old bones hurt. Audrey hopes they do.

Before Audrey can speak something catches her eye. Over the fireplace is a framed painting, a younger Croatoan, Charlotte, Mara. His hair is a sandy brown in the portrait and so is Mara’s, like Lexie’s was. Audrey puts up a hand to her ponytail, it’s been growing in blonde since the split, she’d just dyed it to match the roots a few weeks ago. She and Nathan had laughed about that, it was usually the other way around. She remembers Audrey Parker going to a classmate’s house for a project her sophomore year. There’d been a picture like this on the mantel. How jealous she’d been!  She’d wanted one of her own. A family portrait. Audrey does not want this one. She wants to tear it down, rip it apart. It is a farce, a lie.

She slips her hand into the pocket of her coat; the hard lines of the crystal are reassuring under her fingertips.

When she forces her gaze away, she finds Croatoan  sitting there just looking at her.

Audrey frowns.

“It’s good to see you,” Croatoan says with feeling.

“I can’t say the same,” Audrey scowls, leaning back in her chair.

Instead of being annoyed,Croatoan laughs. “It really is good to see you,” he says, eyes soft. He has blue eyes like she does, she realizes, and instantly is ashamed of the thought.

Audrey balls her hands into fists at her sides. Who the hell does he think he is that he gets to sit there and look at her like that?

“You wanted to talk, let’s talk,” she directs. She’s better than this, better than losing her cool.

“What would you like me to tell you?” he offers. “About your mother? About our world? About your history?”

“I’m not her.” Audrey corrects him. “I’m not Mara. I’m Audrey Parker,” she says it with authority, like she’s always done. _Audrey Parker, Haven PD_. That’s who she is. The fusion might have saved her life, Mara might be a part of her, but that’s not who she is. She’s Audrey Parker, she helps the Troubled.

“I can see that,” Croatoan says agreeably. “Nevertheless you _were_ her, still have her within you. Charlotte saw that,” he nods, “and so can I.”

“Funny how you agree so readily with Charlotte and still found it in you to kill her in cold blood,” Audrey says, voice as bland as oatmeal.

Croatoan winces. “That was, as they say, a necessary evil, I’m afraid.”

“A necessary evil?” she repeats, incredulous.

“It wasn’t the right time to reveal myself to you. You’ve had all the wrong information first. Your mother painted the image of me as a devil, but how many people on your Earth have been called the same-- Audrey?” he asks, pausing over the name as if he’d reached for a different one first and then pulled back.

Audrey sits back in her chair, and raises an eyebrow in challenge.

The man just laughs and continues.

“I was, am, a scientist. My crowning achievement was called Project Croatoan.”

Audrey’s eyebrows rise again.

“Yes, Project Croatoan. My name is Joseph, though it has been many years since anyone has called me that. I feel a little like Frankenstein’s monster with the misnomer and all,” he smiles, inviting her to laugh at his little joke.

Audrey moves not a muscle.

“Let me tell you about Joseph first,” he offers. “On our world, Joseph was a scientist, a husband, a father. I was happy,” he tells her. “Your mother named you Mara, but I called you Dove. We were close. We were _happy_ ,” he stresses the word as if repeating it enough times could make her believe it. Somewhere deep down Audrey finds she does. It brings on an ache in her chest. “When you- when Mara, fell ill it was like all the happiness seeped out of my world.

“I had been experimenting with aether. The portal, the thinny as you call it, to this place had been discovered recently and we were still discovering the uses of aether, how it worked. Charlotte wasn’t interested, but Mara… Mara she was fascinated by my work, by the experiments, how aether could change a thing, a person. In the meantime Mara’s condition kept getting worse, a year passed, two. Nothing worked no matter what we tried. I knew something had to be done. We were watching you age before our eyes, your mother and I. You were so young, you had so much life in you. It wasn’t fair and I was determined not to let you go. I threw myself into my work. I was sure aether would be the answer, the cure. I could save you and I wasn’t going to let fools who didn’t have the nerve dissuade me.” He slams his fist on the table, and she struggles not to flinch. She can see the madness in his eyes now, gone is the devoted father, what’s left is empty and power hungry like Mara was.

“And it worked, didn’t it?” he demands. “It was worth it! Look at you,” he spreads his hands wide, eyes filling with pride.

Audrey rolls her eyes at his theatrics. The great man, solving things with power he didn’t understand. What if the aether he put in Mara was what made her so cruel? What if that was her Trouble, she lost her empathy or the aether magnified her selfishness? As far as Audrey can tell aether magnifies emotions, makes them stronger, gives them a physical outlet beyond the norm. Looking at Croatoan, she can’t say that being exposed to aether hasn’t magnified his pride.

“So you cured Mara,” she prompts, bringing them back on track. “Then what happened?”

He falters here in his tale; no longer victorious, he looks self-conscious. A man with less self-possession might have fidgeted, but Croatoan simply looks off for a moment, clears his throat and then continues.

“I had done things, created beings out of aether, experiments. I had been… changed by my work.” He hesitates to admit it, as if still arguing with someone that it wasn’t the aether.

“Other people, your mother among them, didn’t agree with what I had done, didn’t think the ends justified the means…”

Audrey shudders to think what means he might have used.

“They decided I was dangerous, too dangerous to be let back in their stolid world with its rigid rules and laws.”

Audrey watches him sneer at the words _rules_ and _laws_ and wonders which ones _did he break?_ _How many people died so he could save Mara? How he could justify what he’d done?_

“Your mother was the one to rip my ring from around my neck and strand me here,” he drops the words like a bomb, clearly looking for sympathy. He’ll get none from her.

The bitterness still rings clear in his voice after five hundred years. The betrayal still cuts him, even now. She wonders if that made it easier for him to kill Charlotte. For her part, Audrey would like to be surprised but somehow she isn’t. It sounds like Charlotte: she’d been willing to make hard calls when necessary. That’s something they had in common.

“But you...You fought for me, when you heard what had happened.” He continues when she makes no move to _oh poor baby_ the murderous psychopath. “You came for me. My Mara...” His voice goes fond again, eyes a little distant; _at least someone cared,_ his tone implies. “Your mother told you it was the monster in the void who had taken me, but you didn’t believe her. You were always smarter, cannier, you got that from me.” He’s back in his zone now; bragging, complimenting her and himself all in the same breath.

“What…” Audrey finds her throat has gone dry. She clears it and starts again. “What happened after that?” This is the crux of the story she knows, where it all went wrong, where it all fell apart. How she ended up in Haven. It’s all coming up now.

“Mara took up my work,” Croatoan’s voice is full of pride once more. “She was tireless in her experiments, pushing every boundary and then pushing past them,” he smiles, eyes shining with how impressed he was by this daughter, this monster he created. “Her mother tried to convince her to stop. That it had to be done for the greater good, she had to give me up.”

_The barn_ , Audrey realizes; the reason why she and all the other imprints had to willingly give up the person they loved the most in the world. Charlotte had been trying to teach her daughter a lesson, all right. Charlotte had been trying to get her to understand why she had done what she’d done.

Five hundred years because Mara could not forgive her mother for sentencing her father to death in the Void. Five hundred years because Charlotte insisted her daughter needed to understand. It leaves a bitter taste in Audrey’s mouth and the burn of tears behind her eyes.

She doesn’t have time to take that in. Croatoan is still talking.

“Mara believed in me despite her mother’s failings,” Croatoan lips twist in a sneer. “Then she connected with William. He had been a colleague of mine. He could get her the aether she needed. They worked and worked and finally you came for me and I…” Croatoan pauses, looks down, ashamed, “I was not myself when Mara came. It’s been many years and I have managed to filter enough of the aether in my system so I am almost myself again. I wasn’t then. And I… well, she ran from me and that was for the best.”

At his words Audrey has a flash of Mara and William escaping through a thinny, awful things snapping at their heels and on the edge of that, glimpsed over Mara’s shoulder a terrible shadow that promised to swallow her whole.

“After that they fled, Mara and William, across continents, across worlds. Mara didn’t stop her experiments, but they were now to ward off what I had become. They were merciless, determined, wild in their attempts. That’s when Charlotte found her, bound her to the barn.”

_The Troubles_ , Audrey realizes, they had all been attempts to find a way to use aether against Croatoan. Why else would you give someone the pain of an electric shock in a touch? Why else would you give someone the power to control the weather? To fight off something bigger than themselves

Mara’s problem had always been that the aether wouldn’t affect someone from their world.

Audrey didn’t have that problem anymore. By some stroke of luck, whatever she and Mara had woken in Duke, his Troubles could affect anyone.

“And these experiments, this work of yours and hers...what have you learned about aether?” Audrey asks, careful now, wondering if he’ll share it. It’s important for her to know how it all works and here finally, finally, is someone, no matter how loathsome, who can tell her.

“Aether is like a dog,” Croatoan explains. “It might chew on your shoes and piddle on your papers if you haven’t made it mind you. But once your will is strong enough, it will come to heel, fetch your slippers, guard your house. It takes a while, a good long while, but aether that has been in contact with humans long enough becomes more attuned to your emotions, your will, your wishes, the nuances, everything. It responds better.

"Like your boyfriend Nathan, he’s a sensitive boy, his family have always been so. He wanted not to feel the sting of betrayal and the aether in him reacted, but his will or his focus wasn’t strong enough and so he cannot feel physically. The aether responded to his needs but not in the way he might have intended. You need focus and intent to work with aether from your world, but it will do as it’s bid as best as it can. While the aether here is like a wolf,--wild, undomesticated. It takes a much stronger will-- like yours or mine,” he smiles, “to make it come to heel.”

Audrey listens carefully and turns his words over in her mind. Croatoan gives her the time to digest it.

“You made the Crocker trouble, not Mara,” she clarifies slowly. “To collect aether for you.” Duke had told Nathan he’d learned that much on his road trip.

Croatoan nods. “As I’ve said, aether that has been refined through being processed by people, it responds much more easily than the raw aether I can access here.”

Audrey wants to laugh in his face. To crow about hubris and how he’s crafted his own downfall in Duke. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t know how to help Duke slip the leash Croatoan’s trapped him in. She needs more time, she needs more information. There’s something she needs to know before anything else though. Croatoan must want _something_ from her; there’s no reason for him to be sharing this information so freely otherwise.

“Why are you telling me all this?” Audrey asks

Croatoan smiles as if she is his prize pupil asking all the right questions. Audrey imagines Mara must have lived for those smiles. She is not Mara.

“I want my daughter back. I want to share with her all I’ve learned. I want us to move forward with our lives and make up for the past five hundred years.” Croatoan puts out his hand as if to cover hers.

Audrey flinches.

He lets it drop back to the table and takes a steadying breath. “And after that, I want to collect five hundred years-worth of aether and I want us to go home and make them understand what fools they were. I want to show them what _real_ power is.”

He doesn’t shout, or slam his fist on the table, or make any grand gestures but a shiver races down Audrey’s spine nevertheless at his words--the vehemence and violence in his voice is chilling. Here is a man who will lay entire planes of existence to waste to show that he can.

Her mind races --how the hell is she’s getting out of this one. There is no way she’s letting him free, no way she’s turning him loose on Haven. But this is his territory, he’s been working here for five hundred years. The spidren, the crocotta, the duneyrr, they’re probably all his creations. He’s let her walk across his lands, let her see what he’s capable of before he revealed himself, so she would know. So she would hear the threat inherent in his words.

There’s also the small matter that he doesn’t just want to leave the Void because he’s found her. He’s probably known where she’s been for the last five hundred years. If he really wanted to get to her, he’d have found a way. No, something is wrong here in his little science lab. His hold on the aether is weakening somehow. He wants out because the Void is collapsing in on itself, she can feel that in her bones now. She understands that in the way she understands what might trigger a Trouble back in Haven. His safe world is collapsing and that makes him dangerous. A cornered animal will lash out, and Croatoan may be pretending otherwise but that’s what he is.

“I can give you anything you want, Audrey,” he insists, probably aware he has not swayed her an inch. “A home, a place to belong...”

He waves his hand and suddenly she and Nathan are walking hand in hand down a street in Haven. It’s summer, they’re both in short sleeves. A warm breeze scented with salt water and popcorn lifts her hair. And there’s a little boy running ahead of them in a Seadogs baseball cap, a baby in the stroller Nathan’s pushing.

“James, come back here,” Nathan calls and the little boy skids to a stop. He turns and gives them a smile so like Nathan’s it makes her heart catch in her throat.

Audrey shakes her head and closes her eyes. No, she doesn’t want that, can never have that. James was a grown man--she’d missed that time in his life and he’s dead now. James’ murderer sits across from her at the table with a confused frown.

“No, that’s not what you want,” he agrees.

He waves his hand again and she’s sitting behind the chief’s desk; the brass nameplate winks at her in the light of the lamp, embossed with the title _Chief Parker_.

She doesn’t want that either.

“No.” Croatoan rubs his chin.

“Stop,” Audrey says, but Croatoan’s already waved his hand and she’s sandwiched between Duke and Nathan on a bench on the Rouge. They’re warm and strong and alive, healthy and hale. Duke doesn’t have that sick, pinched look around his eyes, Nathan is at ease, limbs loose, not held tight to his body so they don’t get injured. They’re both smiling.

“I’m so glad your dad took away our Troubles,” Nathan says.

“It’s nice not to be dying form aether poisoning,” Duke agrees.

“Stop it!” she shouts and she’s in the little white cottage again. “I don’t need you to give me those things. I don’t want them from you!”

“Now, Mar-“

“No! I’m not her!” Audrey stands and pushes back from the table, the crystal slapping into her leg as she moves, coat swinging. “Stop calling me that!” She paces back a few steps.

Croatoan spreads his hands out in an appeasing gesture. “That’s fine, _Audrey_ ,” he pronounces the word carefully. “A name is just a name,” he tells her. “Whatever you  want to be called you’re still my daughter.”

“I’m not,” she spits at him. She knows though, deep down; she’ll never be free of Mara while this man lives.

Croatoan smiles, “you have the same rage, the same temper. You may want to help the Troubled now, but what you really want is _power_. It feels good when they look at you like you’re their savior, doesn’t it? Feels good when they fall to their knees and thank you for saving their pitiful lives.”

Audrey is horrified at his assessment. That’s not true. It’s not.

“You can have all that and more, _Audrey_. I can give you everything your heart desires,” he promises.

“While I have those things and we’re playing happy families, what will be happening to the rest of Haven? What about all the Troubled? Are you going to kill them for their aether like you killed _James_ ? Did you know that was your _grandson_ when you were harvesting his aether? And I’m supposed to what? Help you experiment on my friends? You’ve had five hundred years, what the hell makes you think you’re going to make that breakthrough so you can go back home? It’s been five hundred years, guess what? None of them even think of you anymore. No one cares!”

Audrey is seething with rage as she comes to the end of her outburst. Who the hell does he think he is to dangle those pictures in her head like that? To accuse her of wanting people to kneel at her feet? She doesn’t need him to give her anything, and she damn well doesn’t need him in her head like that.

“I can make you believe it’s real, Audrey,” he warns, voice dark with the threat. “I can make you forget all of this, make you believe-“

“I don’t think you can,” she interrupts him, holding up a hand. “Charlotte couldn’t. I broke out of that barn. I saw the lies she was spinning. And even if you did, what then? Would that be enough? If that were enough you’d have built some automaton, some Mara facsimile. It would be a lie and maybe we’re enough alike that I know you can’t live that lie. I’m not your daughter. I’m Audrey Parker. And I’m not going to help you do jack.”

Croatoan tilts his head and in that small gesture Audrey sees the monster Charlotte must have seen. He tilts his head and sets his jaw, and Audrey knows before the words are out of his mouth what’s coming next.

“If you won’t join me willingly, I have three reasons sitting in my front yard why you’re going to help me anyway,” he says and has the gall to smile afterward.

He _smiles_.

And Audrey reaches the end of her tether.

She has been on edge for six weeks, she’s watched her friends suffer, has had to watch them almost die. She’s been chased by spiders with human heads and tornado monsters. Her feet hurt, her heart hurts. Everything she’s had to deal with since setting foot in Haven is because this man before her could not let go when it was time to let go. He’d set Mara up to become a monster, he'd put the tools in her hands himself. All the pain and suffering Duke and Nathan have been through, Dwight and Charlotte, Gloria, Jennifer, everyone-- it’s all at his door.

All she wants to do is go home and end the Troubles, and he is the only real thing that’s stopping her because he’s going to keep coming. No matter what she does, no matter who she saves, he’s bound and determined to make Haven his own private lab.

There’s no reasoning with him, no way to make him understand.

The only thing she can do is stop him.

She wraps her fingers around the crystal in her pocket. She pulls her makeshift weapon and stabs the monster Croatoan in the neck before he ever sees it coming. It goes in easy. The blood spurts wild and red and warm. She yanks the crystal out. It’s slippery in her fist now but there’s no way she’s leaving it behind. Her tan coat is streaked with red from elbow to wrist. Croatoan’s blue eyes are shocked.  


	13. The Rorqual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I sorta messed up my posting schedule with that other fic in that I posted it and in the glow of having posted a thing I forgot I owed you guys a chapter. So here's what's going to happen: today you're going to get this late chapter and then probably on Thursday you'll get this week's actual chapter.

Audrey does not wait, doesn’t stick around to see him bleed out or if he heals. She runs. Through the door that leads to the kitchen because Croatoan’s blocking the way to the front door. The backdoor slams into the side of the cottage and then she’s out. Running. The yard behind the house is lush with greenery, but there is black in the deepest of the greens, rot in the reddest of the berries. Audrey takes it all in at a glance as she flies, the grass speeding beneath her feet.

Around the side of the house is a life sized sculpture of two stags made of driftwood fitted together intricately. Their antlers are caught in an eternal battle. The stag closer to her twitches and Audrey realizes with horror that they are alive. They try and pull apart for a moment, an awful creak of wood on wood, and then they are still again.

Audrey runs. In the front yard Nathan, body taut with worry, crouches beside Duke who is on the ground looking bewildered. His eyes are blessedly brown again. Audrey feels something in her chest crack at the sight, but she doesn’t have time for that.

“Nathan!” she cries, “Duke! We need to go,” she announces.

All three of them spot the bloody crystal in her hand at the same time. Shock and fear and satisfaction flitting across their faces. William gets a hand under Duke and he and Nathan haul him to his feet.

“Let’s go,” William declares before Audrey can say anything else.

She meets his eyes and they are grim. He doesn’t ask what she’s done. Doesn’t scold or congratulate. And she understands why. There’s no way to tell if it’s really over, they don’t have the luxury of checking if she’s not.

They run. William in the lead. Duke stumbles but Nathan is there, hauling him back up. Duke’s eyes are unfocused, confused, like he doesn’t know where he is or what’s happening but he runs because he trusts them and that breaks Audrey’s heart.

They’re barely at the top of the ridge when Duke stumbles again.

“Come on, you’re made of sterner stuff than this,” Nathan growls, but the hands fisted in the back of Duke’s coat are careful as they try to pull him up.

“No! Wait, wait,” Duke protests, gasping, he looks a little more aware now. His eyes are full of fear and determination in equal measure. “I need to do something,” he insists.

William stops at least four steps ahead of them, Audrey hesitates, her blood thrumming with the need to leave. Only Nathan nods.

“Okay,” he says and steadies Duke as he kneels on the path leading to the pretty little cottage by the sea. Nathan keeps his hand on Duke’s shoulder, bracing him, maybe thinking he’s going to vomit. Duke closes his eyes and carefully, purposely spreads the fingers of his left hand on the ground.

Audrey holds her breath, braced for the worst.

When he opens them again his eyes are as brown as ever, and Audrey lets her breath out. Duke’s hand trembles for a moment and then the ground beneath his fingers turns black. Audrey startles, hard, stumbles a step back. Nathan told her Duke could use the Troubles his family absorbed but seeing it in action now… The blackness spreads forward like a wave, eating the path, the grass, the trees, the apples, all of it turns black.

They watch as the wave of rot gains momentum, it spreads, out into the orchards, over the bushes, the berries. When it gets to the house it climbs the walls, seeping into the nooks and crannies. The lighthouse crumbles first as they watch, collapsing onto the roof of the house which falls in with a crash they can hear even from this far away.

 _Well, if the crystal didn’t kill you that certainly did_ , Audrey thinks with grim satisfaction as the walls of the cottage give way to the rot and collapse in on themselves.

All told it takes possibly thirty seconds for the destruction to spread from Duke’s fingertips over Croatoan’s oasis.

When Duke rises he’s steadier. His eyes are clearer. He gives her a half smile and a shrug. “Best to be thorough about these things,” he says and Audrey throws back her head and laughs, a real laugh. Nathan chuckles too, clapping Duke on the shoulder and shaking him gently the way Duke usually does to him.

“Better to be thorough far, far away from here,” William argues. “Who knows what experiments he had in that house.”

Audrey thinks about the stag statues and shudders. Nathan scoops up his own pack and Duke’s once more, and they take off into the woods.

 

Audrey and Nathan take it in turns to give Duke worried looks.

Duke is quiet, which is definitely a sign they should be worried.

Worse than that, he’s holding himself differently, shoulders hunched, head bowed. Duke’s surprisingly graceful for such a big man, he’s all open, loose movements and wide gestures usually but now his movements are clipped, economic. He’s holding himself like he’s wounded, some great hurt that he can’t even find the energy to hide; it’s nothing Audrey can patch or tend to and she hates that.  It’s not the time or place to talk to him about what happened with Croatoan though. They just have to keep moving, as fast as they can. Audrey recognizes that this is exactly what they did in Haven, ignoring the emotional hits but getting out of here really has to take precedence.

“We need to head for the dark patch,” Audrey tells William who nods.

“Figured as much. Hope your trick works twice,” he responds.

“The dark patch?” Duke protests glancing at Nathan in worry.

Audrey explains how they got through the dark patch with the crystal.

“William says it doesn’t always let you out in the same place. I’m hoping with the crystal and aether I’ll be able to control where it lets us out.”

“Well, I’ve heard worse plans,” Duke says, pushing his hands through his hair. It’s exactly the kind of thing he might have said before everything fell apart -- Audrey isn’t sure when she’s counting that from-- but the delivery is off. He’s putting on a show for them, pretending to be alright but Audrey can see how his hands shake before he sticks them in his pockets.

“Your own?” Nathan teases but his voice is gentle, there’s no heat to it. He knows Duke better than Audrey does, he can see it too she’s sure.

“Excuse you? I am a great tactician!” Duke blusters, some of that awful tension relaxing under the familiar banter.

“Yeah, Special Agent, Haven P.D., you make great plans,” Nathan scoffs, keeping the ball rolling.

“We lived to tell the tale did we not?” Duke argues.

“Uh, I have not heard this tale,” Audrey protests wanting in on this little slice of normal they’re building.

Nathan takes point on the story, something that doesn’t escape Audrey’s attention. Duke chimes in at the right spots, when Nathan’s voice dips to give him the cue but his contributions are still lacking any real Duke flair.

Audrey laughs anyway because damnit she needs something to laugh about.

They fall quiet after that as the terrain gets steeper, hurrying as best they can, relying on William’s knowledge of the area to guide them. Audrey at least can say it looks familiar though she was paying more attention to the trail Duke had left than her surroundings.

Now that she’s not distracted she notices that the woods around Croatoan’s oasis are silent, nothing moves except for them. It is an eerie feeling in a place full of eerie feelings. She presses her hand to the pocket of her coat and feels the reassuring lump of the crystal inside. _It’s still there._

Something silver winks at her out of the woods. Audrey spots a boulder made entirely of some shiny reflective substance just sitting there in the forest. Before she can ask anything about it William grabs her shoulder and angles her away.

“Don’t let it catch your reflection,” he warns.

Audrey doesn’t ask why. She believes the urgency in his voice. She doesn’t want to know what it might do.

 

Soon the sunshine is lost, drowned under low hanging gunmetal gray clouds that rise and fall like ocean waves. A faint drizzle starts, more fog than rain, but it penetrates the forest more effectively than real rain would.

“Asperatus clouds,” Duke murmurs staring up between the leaves watching the clouds roil. “They don’t usually come with rain.”

“What is it red sky at night sailor take warning?” Audrey jokes because she is so, so done and she will be very pissed if the sky itself crashes down on them.

Nathan snorts in amusement and shakes his head. Audrey grins. “For not being a sailor you’re awful judgey about my sailing parlance, Wuornos.”

“Parlance,” Nathan snorts. “Parker, you sound like Duke in high school French.”

A beat passes, then another, Audrey and Nathan exchange yet another worried glance. Duke shakes himself. “That is a lie, I had a much better grasp of French than you, Mr. I-Gargle-With-Marbles Wuornos.”

Audrey snickers. She can believe that about Nathan, Mr. Functional Mute trying to wrap his tongue around French syllables but she can’t help notice how there was no “Excusez toi!” at the start of that sentence from Duke.

 

They keep walking. It’s slow going in the damp with the mud. Audrey feels like she’ll never be dry again. Nathan’s hair plasters itself to his forehead before Duke pulls up the hood on his jacket for him.

Nathan rolls his eyes but his quiet “Thanks,” is a lot less sarcastic than he means for it to come out.

It makes Audrey smile.

Duke shrugs, hands tucked into his pockets like he’s embarrassed by the gesture now.

They carry on for a few more paces in silence before Nathan returns the favor, pulls the brown hood of Duke’s coat up over his hair. Duke startles hard and Nathan holds up his hands in a placating gesture, taking a step back. Audrey hates how brittle Duke looks, fragile, worn thin at the edges. Duke gives Nathan a smile that’s as false as the apple trees they just destroyed.

“S’alright,” he says.

It is not alright.

But they’re going home. They have the crystal. They have time. She’s going to make damn sure he gets to alright.

 

The forest echoes with the drip of water falling off of the leaves. Beneath some of the big pines there are patches of small white flowers. They catch Audrey's eye because they're so normal in the midst of all the strange. But even as Audrey watches drops coalesce on the branch of one of the trees and drips down, turning the petals transparent upon contact so it looks like the ghost of a flower. Audrey drags her gaze away.

Looking up is no better. There are strange shadows moving in the distance. At first she thinks they’re low hanging clouds, they’re that big, but then she realizes they’re too smooth? Too rough? Too something to be clouds. They could be mountains but mountains don’t float in the sky or move. She can’t get a good view of them through the trees, and something tells her she doesn’t really want to. Whatever the things are they make long, deep lowing calls that reverberate in her bones. She prays they do not actually run into whatever they are.

A flash of light grabs her attention. She cranes her neck searching the dull world around them for its source. Another mirrored boulder sits about thirty yards away through the trees. _It couldn’t be the same one, could it?_ It manages to send off a glint of light again despite the overcast sky. A shiver of fear traces cold fingers up her spine as she registers the pull in her gut, like a fish hook behind her navel, drawing her towards the mirror. Her feet shuffle on the muddy ground.

“Parker?” Nathan asks but it’s William who curses. He grabs her arm, tugging her further out of range of the thing.

“We’re going to have to take a detour,” he tells them. “We definitely don’t need that thing catching us.”

He leads them to the mouth of a cave, cold and black and yawning.

“We’re not going through there,” Nathan balks. Audrey knows he’s worried about how he’ll cope in the dark. She doesn’t want to go into the cave herself and she’d be able to feel.

“Take the high road and get swallowed, Wuornos,” William dares, ducking his head and walking into the cave.

Nathan and Duke look to her. Audrey looks back at the cave. She thinks of the tug from the mirror creature.

“At least we’ll be out of the wet,” she tells them.

The cave goes about ten feet before it branches off into tunnels. There’s a blue glow coming from each of them that’s just enough to see by. William stands at the mouth of the leftmost tunnel, waiting impatiently.

He turns once he sees them and splashes off.

_So much for being dry._

They wade through ankle deep water. The water reflects the blue glow coming from the ceiling; it’s almost beautiful she thinks, the electric blue against the dark, almost like stars. She and Nathan and Duke move slowly at first, picking their way, trying to avoid splashing their jeans. It’s cold enough without being wet.

Audrey keeps turning back to check on Nathan. He’s got his best numb face on; he’s not scared, no, he’s not bothered at all, the face says.

Audrey’s scared and bothered enough for the both of them.

He can’t feel the floor. He can’t feel where it’s wet or slippery. He could die in here so easily; take the wrong step, stumble in the wrong spot. Duke’s worried too, she can see it in how closely he’s following Nathan. Why didn’t they convince him to stay behind in Haven?

Audrey glances up after a few minutes and now that her eyes have adjusted to the darkness she can just make out that there’s something moving up there. She blinks hard again. What she’d taken for moss is actually a… she swallows hard, and shoves down the urge to scream. It’s a whole colony of bugs, some are glowing, some are not, as they crawl along the intricate network of webs they’ve crafted.

“Glow worms,” Duke murmurs, following her gaze.

Audrey shudders.

“Come on,” is all she says, resisting the urge to slap at her hair and make sure none are riding on her shoulders. Whatever her personal feelings on the worms are she’s grateful for the light they provide as they follow William’s echoing footsteps through the twisting winding tunnel.

She’s calmed down enough that her breathing is no longer loud in her ears when the whole world shakes.

“Earthquake!” Nathan shouts, grabbing for Audrey.

“No. It’s the damn rorqual! We must have caught their attention too,” William curses coming back to them.

“What the hell is a rorqual?” Audrey demands.

“A whale?” Duke answers before William can.

“We’re nowhere near the ocean!” Nathan protests sounding as flabbergasted as Audrey feels.

“They don’t need one here.” William’s answer is terrifying. “And this one is mad and is trying to get in here to get at us so I suggest you run before it brings the whole cave down on our heads!”

Audrey is so tired of running.

The next bone shaking crash spurs them to new speeds though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of creepy things in this chapter.
> 
> The stags are as terrifying as advertised made by [James Doran](http://jamesdoranwebb.com/) I don't believe his move though. ;)
> 
>   
> Skeleton flowers are actually a thing.  
> 
> 
> Did I need to see whales floating through the sky? No. No I did not. And therefore I'm subjecting you to that too.  
> 
> 
> And here are the glow worms photographed by Jordan Poste in a cave in NZ  
> 
> 
> Now that I've terrified you. Got a favourite part? Feel free to tell me about it. :)


	14. The Cave In

Running through a warren of caves is always so easy in the movies. They never show you how the rock grabs at your sleeves like it has hands, how the floor rises and falls unpredictably, how every turn could be the wrong one. The eerie blue glow of the bugs casts eerie blue shadows on her companion’s faces. Nathan stumbles on the uncertain terrain and Audrey gasps, but Duke grabs his arm just in time, hauling him back up.

Ahead of them William shouts “This way!”

She can barely see him in the dim light.

Behind them come the thunderous booms of collapsing rock as the roof and walls give way under the battering of the rorqual. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to have followed them, at least the crashes aren’t any closer.

“We’re almost out!” William cries.

Audrey’s surge of relief crashes away a moment later in the ominous creaking overhead. She glances up and sure enough-- cracks are spreading in the walls of the tunnel, fissures racing each other to form zigzags, those fracture lines sending out tributaries to link with the others until a slab of rock the size of her desk slams down practically on top of them.

Duke grabs her arm and hauls her away from the wall, pushing her in front of him and Nathan.

“Come on,” he pants, dark eyes wide with barely concealed fear.

Audrey remembers idly giving thought to running a 10k at some point in the future when Haven wasn’t so messed up. The thought is funny now. She is never running another step in her life when they get home. Her leg muscles are burning with tiredness, there’s a stitch in her side, her lungs feel like they keep slamming up against her rib cage with how hard they’re pumping.

“Almost there,” she calls to the boys, as a sudden wash of sunlight brightens the tunnel, makes it easier to see, gives her a second wind. She’s going so fast when the wall ahead starts caving in she’s sure she could make it.

Then Nathan trips. Audrey hears it, hears his curse. She turns in time to see him go sprawling. Duke is too far away to catch him this time.

They can still make it, Audrey’s sure.

She hurries back to Nathan. Even as he’s rising to his knees the wall ahead of them loses the battle and rumbles, stone dropping away from stone, clattering and thudding down.

“Go,” Nathan gasps, waving them on.

“Don’t be dumb,” Duke curses, but even as he closes his hands around Nathan’s biceps the wall finishes collapsing with a roar. They drag Nathan back to his feet, but by then the rocks are already settling.

“Audrey!” William’s voice comes faintly between the stones.

“We’re alive,” she shouts back, anxiously brushing at Nathan’s clothes.

“M’fine,” he insists, quiet and chagrined, pushing her and Duke’s worried hands away.

“Gonna have to dig yourselves out,” William shouts.

“Thanks for the insight,” Audrey yells, frustration and fear sharpening her tone. “Never would’ve thought of that.”

\-----

They start moving the rubble in the dim light seeping through the cracks. Audrey and Duke choose carefully, first smaller stones and then larger pieces.

It feels like for every rock they move two more appear in its place.

Nathan is hurried, careless, picking up larger and larger slabs of stone, movements quick and jerky, embarrassment and anger fueling him no doubt. Audrey knows him well enough to know it’s better to let him burn this mad off. Anyone could have tripped back there, and he’s working at a disadvantage, but those are not things he’s ready to hear right now.

“Nathan, don’t!” Duke yelps, bringing Audrey’s head swinging around.

Nathan snarls “I got this,” and yanks at a piece and the pile of rocks shifts, comes crashing down.

“Nathan!”

They both reach for him but it’s too late.

When the dust settles, his arm is pinned under a stone slab the size of a dinner table and his head’s bleeding from the falling debris.

“Nathan, are you alright?” Audrey’s already on her knees trying to pry the brick thick slab of stone away from him.

“M’fine, Parker,” he grunts, turns his head and coughs. “Arm’s pinned pretty good,” he slurs.

“Damnit! Why didn’t you listen to Duke?” she demands, a cold knot of fear forming in her gut. She turns to share a frustrated glance with Duke and then realizes Duke is conspicuously absent. She finds him pressed against the opposite wall like he’s holding it up.

What the hell?

“Duke?” she urges, “come help me get this off him.”

Duke shakes his head. “I...I can’t. Audrey,” his voice cracks, “the blood…”

Audrey grimaces.

Right. The blood.

She swears so viciously even Duke looks startled. Nathan gives her a spaced out grin that makes her own blood run cold. She taps his cheek with her hand.

“Look at me,” she instructs holding up her hand in front of his face. “How many fingers?”

“Two,” he answers which is correct but it might also be the expected answer so she makes him repeat the check twice more first with three fingers and then one.

“Can you get your arm free?” she asks.

Nathan shakes his head. “S’trapped.”

“Is it caught on something or pinned?” she demands but Nathan scowls and shakes his head.

“S’trapped,” he repeats.

“Damnit!” She casts around frantically. She’s going to need help.

“William!” she shouts but there’s no answer.

She tries to move the stone again but it won’t budge. A glance over her shoulder shows that Duke is hunched in on himself against the opposite wall, barely visible in the dim light, his shoulders are practically touching his ears and he’s got his eyes closed, taking deep, conscious breaths. His hands are curled into tight trembling fists at his sides.

Audrey drops her pack and drags out a clean pair of socks, presses the wad of cloth to Nathan’s cut. She takes his free hand and makes him hold it there. He blinks blearily at her without comment and Audrey’s worry doubles.

With Nathan at least compliant, Audrey crouches at Duke’s side. “Listen,” she tells him. “I can’t move that on my own. His arm’s trapped, maybe crushed; we won’t know until we get the rock off him. I put a compress on the cut, the blood’s covered. I need you on this, Duke.”

Duke gives her a look that’s so wounded she feels like she’s stabbed him. She has to ask though. She can’t do this on her own. She feels tears of frustration prick her eyes and blinks them away hurriedly.

“ _Nathan_ needs you on this,” she begs. It’s dirty poker, she knows, but she’ll play any card she has to and if Duke has proven anything to her it’s how much he loves Nathan Wuornos. He literally walked back into their own personal apocalypse because Nathan asked.

Duke takes a deep shuddering breath and gets to his feet. “You always ask me to do the easy thing, Audrey,” he blusters.

It’s so familiar, the tone, the reproach, a song she knows well. Audrey smiles. “I always know you’ll come through,” she answers and it’s Duke’s turn to blink feelings away. He ducks his head and averts his gaze, but she sees how important that is to him, how he values the words. It makes her feel like a heel for doubting him.

Duke tries lifting the rock but doesn’t move it much. Audrey helps and they get a wiggle but can’t get any traction. They try digging out the stones around it, trying to tip it, but it’s too big, holding everything in place.

Exhausted, Audrey drops to the ground and puts her head in her hands.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Nathan’s hand holding the makeshift bandage in place go tense. He shakes his head as if trying to clear it. “Parker?” he calls.

“I’m right here, Nathan,” she answers, hurrying to his side.

“Arm’s trapped,” he tells her, worry and fear plain in his voice like he’d usually never let show. That’s really what scares Audrey. Nathan starts to tug on his arm, trying to pull the trapped limb free like he hadn’t even noticed it was stuck before.

“The head wound,” Audrey tells Duke, pressing down on Nathan’s shoulder to hold him still, “it must be messing with his memory.” And they have no way of knowing if the damage is serious here. No way to tell until they get him home if he’s bleeding inside his skull. They don’t even have a damn flashlight to tell if he’s concussed. Audrey coughs away the dust, but the tightness in her chest stays.

Nathan struggles harder, trying to push the stone off him and sending pebbles bouncing down the pile.

“Nathan, don’t,” Duke scolds, reaching around Audrey to help hold him still.

Nathan’s eyes are going wider and wider now, panic setting in. “Can’t move my arm, Duke!” he argues, straining harder.

“Nathan you’re going to hurt yourself,” Audrey warns.

“Can’t feel it,” Nathan corrects her.

_He can’t feel it._

Audrey would like to shake him til he feels that! The rubble starts to shift, there’s another ominous rumble from the ceiling now.

“Parker,” Nathan rasps, scared like the Crocotta tried to make him sound last night. He tries heaving himself away but the arm is trapped and even Nathan’s panicked strength is no match for eight inch thick stone.

“Nathan, stop it!” Duke orders as the ceiling gives another long, moaning creak. He’s not listening. The way Nathan is struggling, even if his arm isn’t damaged he could hurt himself now. He could dislocate his shoulder, he could bring the whole damn pile down on himself and them.

Duke gives up on holding Nathan still, switches his grip to pull at the stone too, neck muscles straining with the effort, face going red even in the dark. Seeing Duke helping Nathan drops the makeshift bandage to pull at his arm, trying to yank it loose.

The scent of the blood is immediately stronger, sharp and coppery in the back of her throat. Audrey sees Duke’s eyes go wide, his nostrils flare. She scrabbles to grab for the bandage. Duke recoils instinctively, almost lets the stone drop the scant half an inch they’d budged it.

“Nathan, hold still!” She orders. He’s just making himself bleed more heavily now, panicked breath heaving as he fights to free himself.

“Help me, Duke,” he begs, pupils blown wide, wild and disoriented. He doesn’t understand why he can’t move his arm, doesn’t understand why they’re yelling at him to hold still. It’s dark and he can’t feel and he must be so confused.

There’s a loud crack from the ceiling that can spell nothing good.

Duke’s eyes are full of despair as he turns to her.

“Get ready to run,” he warns.

Before Audrey can ask what he’s going to do he’s done it, swiped two fingers through the blood staining Nathan’s face.

Duke’s eyes go black and empty even as the blood seeps into his hand.


	15. Duke

Duke looms over Nathan, and Audrey hates that she ever has to consider _Duke_ a threat but her hand automatically goes to where her absent gun should be on her belt. There’s nothing there though and she doesn’t know if she’s grateful or not for that.

Duke holds very, very still, breathing deep and steady as he blinks those empty aether black eyes. Violence and power building in his muscles like clouds before a storm.

They stand on the brink of destruction or salvation, Audrey isn’t sure which. She knows Duke doesn’t know either. She prays he’s as strong as they need him to be. He’s always been before, even when it hurts, even when it breaks him. He’s always come through for them.

She watches Duke tremble, Nathan’s head lolls on his neck like a drunk at the Gull.

She twists the cap off the tube of aether in her pocket. She lifted it off Croatoan and she’s so glad she did now. The image of Duke’s face so lost but willing to run because Nathan asked it of him stays her hand. The hunched, wounded set of his shoulders as they walked through the woods just now makes her wait to see what he’s going to do.

Duke’s arms come up and Audrey holds her breath. Then he’s yanking up the enormous slab of stone like it’s styrofoam. He holds it over Nathan’s prone form, holds it and himself so terribly still, powerful muscles frozen for one long terrible moment.

He spins on a dime and punches his fist right through the slab of stone, breaking it into dozens of pieces of rubble. It rattles down on the floor as he folds down, bracing his hands on his legs, breathing gone heavy and sharp now.

Audrey squeezes in, hauling Nathan to his feet, backing him against the still standing wall, ready to run. But there’s really nowhere to go. The tunnel behind them is a black, gaping maw, the glow worms crushed or scattered. Nathan groans, blinking hard, trying to see past the blood in his eyes and the dust in the air. Audrey can’t spare him more than a glance now though, she keeps her eyes trained on Duke. She has no idea what he’s going to do--whatever hold he has on himself, she’s sure it’s barely fingertips clinging to that control now.

Duke moves, footfalls heavy and loud as he paces past them.

Audrey braces herself to use the aether. She will if she has to, but the puppet Duke in Croatoan’s front yard was still worse than this aether-hungry creature in front of her. So she hesitates, waits, wills him to hold it together.

He turns with careful precision to the pile of debris blocking the way out. When he moves it’s lightning fast. He starts pitching rocks away from the entrance, hands moving with such strength and speed it’s almost impossible to see them.

The way is almost clear when he flags, drops to his knees, hangs his head between his shoulders, breaths coming loud and distressed echoing off the stone around them. She should take Nathan and run. It's the smart thing to do. Duke could lose his control any second, but it’s Duke, her Duke, she can’t leave him here. She won’t. Audrey props Nathan against the still standing wall and goes to kneel in front of Duke.

“Duke?” she calls but he doesn’t respond.

She gets her hands on his cheeks, makes him raise his gaze to hers.

His eyes are still black but they don’t look empty any more, they look lost.

“Hey,” she breathes, settling in front of him. “Nathan’s free, he’s out,” she gestures over his shoulder to where Nathan’s slumped down the wall into a sitting position, eyes closed tight. “That was a great job you did,” she says brightly, trying to draw him out.

Duke blinks, as if he hadn’t even seen her there, stares at her, stares right through her, shoulders heaving with his harsh breaths.

“You almost cleared the path out of here, too. I think we can squeeze through as soon as you’re ready,” she offers. Like he’s going to just get up and leave because the way is clear. As if he’s not fighting every instinct he has to not rip Nathan apart. Audrey doesn’t know what’s stopping him but she hopes like hell she’s helping.

She doesn’t know though because Duke doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge her words just keeps breathing deep and quick like he’s in pain. He might be for all she knows.

She puts her hands on the side of his face again, hesitant of her welcome where before she’d never had to wonder. She hates that.

“You’re okay,” she tells him gently, tone coaxing. “You’re okay, Duke.” She says it with conviction, like if she believes it hard enough it’ll be true. She strokes her thumbs against his jaw, feels how tense the muscles are there

“It’s safe now, Duke, you don’t have to hold onto the aether anymore. Let it go, Duke,” she begs, running her hand over his hair, smoothing it back from his face. “It’s safe, Duke,” she repeats. The finest tremble goes through his whole body at her touch. His breath hitches for a moment before resuming its pattern.

Please, she begs the universe, please.

“Croatoan’s dead. You’re safe from him too,” she says, because she needs to say it, not just for Duke. “I stabbed him,” she tells Duke, like she’s telling a secret, quiet and vicious and smug. “I took the controller crystal that we came all this way for and I stabbed him right in the neck. He’s dead, Duke. I still have his blood on my coat.” There’s vindication in her voice, in her hands as they smooth over Duke’s hair again. She’s talking about a _person_ , she shouldn’t be _satisfied_ but she is. He would never have stopped, would have used Duke, used Haven. She couldn’t let that happen. “He deserved worse,” she says fiercely. “He thought he was so special, so superior," she sneers. "He was just like every jackass in Haven who wanted a scrap of power and didn’t care who he stepped on to get it.”

Audrey laughs, bitter and sharp. “Five hundred years of death and terror, and the monster in the dark was just so... _human_.” Her own personal Voldemort would hate being called that more than any other word she’s sure.

“And he can’t touch you anymore, Duke, can’t touch anyone ever again,” she assures him. She’s glad Croatoan’s dead, fiercely proud of that decision.

Duke’s still breathing heavily but his breaths are slowing down, coming more carefully now.

She can feel him trembling under her hands, all that strength, all that terrible strength held in such careful check. Yes, he needed to hear that. She’d kill Croatoan again a thousand times if it would help.

“I hate that you’re going through this, Duke.” She does. It’s not fair, not even remotely to have to scrabble and claw to hold on to who you are while the aether tries its best to warp that into something unrecognizable. “I hate that Mara did this to you, stripped you of that control you fought so damn hard for. You were so strong for so long.” She remembers his face so serious and indignant after Harry Nix. “But you’re building it back,” she encourages. “Look at you, look how you’re already holding it together, Duke.”

And he is. She thinks of him yesterday, feral and wild. He’s already getting control of this new aspect of his Trouble.

“You weren’t surprised in the woods,” Audrey realizes now that she’s thinking about it. “It wasn’t the first time this Trouble triggered.  You knew what had happened when you woke up. You’ve fought it off before.” Audrey clings to the thought. “You must have. Think, Duke, think what did you do then? How did you control it?” she coaches.

“You’re stronger than this, Duke. You’re already stronger than you were yesterday, you’re holding it together so much better already. Your family’s legacy never controlled you, and whatever Mara did to you can’t either. You’re stronger than that, Duke. Stronger than anyone ever gave you credit for. You’ve been fighting so hard with no one in your corner for too long. But you’re not alone, Duke.” He’s not. She swears it.

“I know I haven’t done a good job of acting like it,” she admits, the weight of how alone he must have felt to turn to Mara lays heavy on her shoulders, the image of those black hand prints stark in her mind. “We’ve let each other down lately, you and I. You deserved better, Duke. But I’m here now, I’m in your corner. I’ve got the aether right here,” she tells him, the vial pressing into her leg through her jeans. “I’ll help you rein this in if you need me to,” she hates the thought, the very idea of this proud man being dragged along like he had strings.

“But I won’t unless you ask,” she swears it. He’s been through too much. She won’t treat him like a toy to be programmed the way she wants. “It’s your choice. I won’t control you the way they did. I believe you’re stronger than this. You’re better than this. You’re more than your Trouble, Duke Crocker, you always have been.” He told her he didn't want to live like this, begged her not to let him hurt anyone else. But she has to give him this chance, to fight his way back out from under it.

The tremor in Duke’s muscles increases. His hands flex and clench.

“That’s it,” she whispers. Audrey reaches down and takes his left, wraps her fingers around the tight fist, strokes her thumb across the knuckles. The skin isn’t even broken from punching the stone. Such terrible strength.

“Come back, Duke.” She wills him to do it, to pull it together. “Not just for me and Nathan but for you. You don’t deserve to be broken like this. You’re _not_ a monster, Duke.” She shakes his arm to make sure the words register. “I won’t let Mara make you into one.”

Duke’s trembling all over now. His eyes are still black, still staring right past her but his body’s on high alert, shaking from head to toe. He’s listening to her. She’s getting through to him.

“Fight this, Duke,” she begs. “Don’t let her win. She was using you, Duke. She bragged to me about setting you off like a bomb, she was excited for the fall out. She wanted this.” Audrey feels sick to her stomach again remembering how gleeful Mara had been explaining what she’d done, the horror of hearing that in her own voice.

“But y’know what, Duke?” she whispers. “She doesn’t get to have it,” Audrey’s voice gains vehemence with every word. “She doesn’t get to hurt you and have it stick. Fight this, Duke. Take back your control. You’re so strong. Stronger than she ever was because you’ve got this,” she brings their hands up to press over his heart.

It’s beating so fast beneath her fingers.

“You’ve got such a good heart, Duke Crocker.” She closes her eyes against the blur of tears. It’s so unfair.

“She could never understand that. Hers was shriveled, blackened with aether.” Audrey’s throat closes in. She doesn’t have any clear Mara memories but she has an unshakeable impression of emptiness. Mara wasn’t even aware of it but there was nothing there, nothing made her happy, where fondness, friendship, family should have been, even food or fun, all of it was just missing. The only thing she had left was jealousy for those who felt those things and fear of the monster in the void. “All she understood was power and hurt. In the end, she had nothing. That’s not you, Duke. That’s not you.” She squeezes his hand. It’s not.

“You don’t want that kind of power, no matter what this Trouble is telling you. You’re not Croatoan’s hunting dog, gathering aether like some damn trained beast. You care about so much more than this, Duke. You have things you want, you have things that make you happy. You have a life, things you care about the Gull, the Rouge, friends who you love-” Audrey hears his breathing hitch, feels a deep shudder go through their hands.

“Au--drey.”

She jumps at the sound of his strained voice, hope rising painfully in her throat.

“Duke!"

“Go,” he begs, sounding like it's taking everything in him to get the word out.

“No!” she answers, horrified and scared in equal measure now.

“Leave me,” he grates out like each word hurts.

“Duke, no! We’re not going anywhere, damnit!” she shakes his wrists in her hands, wishing she could shake him hard enough to shake all the aether out of him. “Get that idea out of your head! We could have left already, don’t you know that? The way is clear,” Audrey gestures behind her wildly with one hand.

“Why haven’t I gotten Nathan out, Duke?” she asks because she needs him to think of something anything besides his Trouble now. “Why haven’t I just pulled out the aether and used it on you? I love him right? And he’s hurt and can’t defend himself. I should have just gotten him out. But I haven’t because this isn’t just _any_ Troubled person. This is _Nathan_ and I know you won’t hurt him.  You love him too, Duke. And I get to say that now because you can’t stop me,” she goads, hoping for a reaction “and if you want me to stop saying it then you need to snap out of this,” she pauses, waits but there’s no change so she keeps talking.

“I’ve seen him out of his mind attacking you with no provocation and you refused to hit him back, Duke. You go with him to crime scenes when he is a trained law enforcement official and you’re a civilian! But you go anyway, because he needs someone watching his back, he needs someone keeping him safe. Your words, not mine,” she adds. “You bring him lukewarm coffee so he doesn’t burn his tongue. You nag him about eating things besides jerky. You chose to save his life over _ending all the Troubles_ not even two months ago!” Audrey throws up her hands in exasperation.

“I know you don’t want to acknowledge it,” she says softly taking his hands again, they’re cold and clammy when Duke’s hands are always warm, but his fingers are only curled not clenched like they were before. It gives her a powerful, painful surge of hope. “God forbid either of you admit you don’t hate each other but what it boils down to is we both know you’d rather die than hurt him. And dying is not an option, Duke Crocker,” she warns fiercely.

“So you’re going to pull yourself together and snap out of this because we’re not leaving you behind.” Audrey orders, her heart rate skyrocketing at just the thought, adrenaline flooding her veins, sick and familiar. She can’t lose Duke. She won’t.

“He loves you just as much as you love him,” she says it quietly, like a secret, it feels like a betrayal to Nathan to say it out loud but it’s the truth and Duke should know. She says it quiet like a secret because she’s always been a little worried they’d realize what was between them and then she’d be left out in the cold. They have all that history together. How could she compete with that? But if this is what Duke needs then by god it’s what he’s going to hear.

Duke’s heavy breaths stop entirely at her words. When they start again they’re shaky with emotion.

“Come on, Duke,” she whispers, going up on her knees to press her forehead to his. “Fight this,” she begs, their breath mingling in the cold dusty air. “We’re right here waiting for you,” she tells him. “Come back to us. You did it. You came through for us again just now, now we need you to come back. Just—"

Audrey’s throat closes up again, tears spill over without her permission. She watches the drops splash on their joined hands held firm in her lap. It makes her think of Rapunzel in the desert, crying away the glass in her love’s eyes. She wishes fervently that would help, because she could do that easy; at this point she could cry for a dozen years and still not be cried out. She’d pulled out the big guns, if anything could have brought him back that should have been it. It should have worked.

“Please,” her voice cracks on the word. She lets go one of his hands to cup his cheek, stroking her thumb over the cheekbone.  “Duke… we just got you back. _I_ just got you back. I don’t – I can’t lose you again, Duke.” A sob works its way up, shakes her shoulders even as she holds it back. “I don’t know what else to say. I… we’re just making this up as we go. I don’t have a plan here, Duke. I need—“ she breaks off thinking of that long ago day in the Keegan barn. Audrey chokes on her words. She squeezes her eyes shut, her hands are trembling as hard as Duke’s now. “I need you…” she repeats, despair welling fresh and bitter.

She jolts hard at the hand on her cheek, her lids flying open.

Duke’s there looking back at her.

His eyes are beautifully, blessedly brown. They’re full of affection and not quite dry either. “I’m better than most plans Audrey, but this is a bit much,” he croaks.

Audrey gives a wet, delighted laugh. She flings herself at him, rocking them both back onto the floor into the debris. She buries her face in his neck and shoulder and doesn’t do a damn thing to stop relieved tears from flowing, she just holds on.

Duke’s hands, dusty and bruised come up to stroke her back

“I’m alright, Audrey,” he rasps.

Audrey pulls back, glares at him through wet lashes. “I’m starting to think you and Nathan don’t understand what that word means,” she scolds but lets him up nevertheless.

He creaks to his feet like an old man, exhaustion in every line of his being but he still holds out a hand to help her up and Audrey almost starts crying again at the gesture. It’s such a Duke thing to do. She takes the hand, lets him pull her up. His fingers are solid and warm and Audrey doesn’t know that she wants to let them go ever again.

She brushes her thumb over his cheekbone again, sees the shudder work its way through his frame. She gets her hand around the back of his neck, pulls him down, presses her lips to his forehead -- a benediction, a thank you.

When she pulls away his eyes are still closed. He looks… overwhelmed.

“Duke,” she calls gently, squeezing the hand she still has a hold of.

“Audrey-- "

Before they can say anything else William pokes his head in through the entrance Duke’s cleared.

“Are you people coming or did you decide you wanted to spend the night in here?” he demands.

Audrey flips him off then scrubs her palms down her face.

When she drops her hands Duke’s there, giving her a searching look.

She gives him a wry smile. Always looking out for her. She nods, yeah, she’s okay. Amazingly, miraculously, she’s ok.

She lifts her eyebrows back at him but he just shrugs. ‘Who knows?’ the gesture says.

She leaves it at that because he deserves time to process all this.


	16. One Mile To Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said 17 chapters but this chapter was HUGE so I split it and now we're ending on a nice even 18. Thank you dear readers for all the comments and for sticking with me through this fic, you keep me invested and keep me writing! I hope you've enjoyed this creepy trek through the Void with our Three Gulls. I've got a few more creepy things left and a soft epilogue (because they are good people and they deserve it) before the sequel.

They go to Nathan, hands gentle, prying him off the floor. He rouses with a groan when Audrey not so accidentally touches the bump on his head. They lead him blinking owlishly into the dimly lit empty brown field on the edge of another aether black forest.The fog is thinner here, white fingers crawling between the trees, hazing the sunlight, the air is still and thick as if the whole world is waiting for something.

They settle Nathan on the edge of a boulder and Duke backs away as quickly as he can. Audrey's heart does a sick flip, Duke may have won that battle but the war is far from over. Nathan doesn't notice, just complains loudly and indignantly while Audrey pulls off his coat to check his arm for broken bones.

“Man up, Wuornos, it’s not like you can feel the cold,” William snarks.

By some fluke his arm is fine, it was just pinned not crushed. Audrey’s breath whooshes out in relief even as Nathan flails belligerently.

She meets Duke’s worried brown gaze and smiles. “He’s okay,” she tells him and they both relax a little with the knowledge that this one thing has gone right for them.

 

Nathan comes around properly after they’re in the fresh air for a little while. His eyes lose their glassy sheen and his complaints dry up. He goes silent and stoic even as Audrey probes the cut hidden in his hair. It’s small, not even an inch long and has started to clot. “Probably wouldn’t have bled that much if we weren’t running,” she tells him, wiping blood from his face with the damp edge of a t shirt. She knows he’d rather do it himself but common sense holds him in check. He can’t feel where the blood is. So he lets her, jaw ticking with embarrassment and frustration.

She loves this stubborn face. She’s so glad it’s not smashed pancake flat.

“You’re awfully grumpy for someone who just had a fifteen minute nap,” Audrey snarks, flicking affectionately at the end of his nose.

Nathan goggles at her and then resumes scowling while Duke chuckles.

“Next time you can take the rock to the head,” he complains, rubbing at his nose.

Audrey cannot help the soft smile that stretches her lips. It’s good to hear him grumbling. She was really worried there for a minute. Nathan catches her expression and subsists into silence, the tips of his ears turning red.

 

“Here,” she presses the rest of the bottle of water she’d used to dampen the shirt and a granola bar into his hands. “Eat something, you lost a lot of blood.”.

Nathan looks mutinously at the items in his hands but Audrey ignores that and turns on Duke. “You too,” she orders. And though his eyes go wide and his hands come up in protest, Audrey manages to wrap his fingers around a granola bar. “We’re not going to get out of here any quicker if we have to carry one of you,” she tells Duke, glancing pointedly at Nathan.

Duke makes a face at her but opens the wrapper with a loud crinkle and a put upon sigh. She hears Nathan unscrew the cap on the bottle a moment later.

Audrey smirks in triumph as she digs through Nathan’s pack for another bottle of water because Duke needed looking after too and she totally tricked him into eating that. She can’t imagine breaking up the stone like it was cardboard was kind on his blood sugar.

She hears a crinkle of wrapper and looks up to find William’s stolen a granola bar out of her pack. She rolls her eyes as he toasts her with it. She lets him have it, it’s been a long morning.

Before she can unearth another water she sees Nathan offer Duke his bottle wordlessly. Duke shakes his head but Nathan pushes it on him. They trade it back and forth until it’s empty. She blinks back a sudden sheen of tears at the sweetness of the gesture, at how even broken and bruised they still look out for each other.

_She’s so damn tired._

Audrey sits gingerly on the dusty ground, her aching heels weeping with relief. She drinks some of the water from the new bottle and uses some of it to wet another edge of the shirt and wipe her face free of the dust and grime from the cave in.

Feeling marginally better Audrey balls up the t shirt and tosses it away, it’s ruined now coated with aether and blood and ash.

William snatches it out of the air as it sails past him. “Are you nuts?” he demands.

“I didn’t know you were so concerned with littering,” Audrey replies. A flash of-- something -- in the woods distracts her, she turns, searching for the source but can’t see anything.

“Didn’t really think the void was a take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints kinda place,” Duke drawls still sounding shaky but better than he did before.

“More of a be glad you got out with all your limbs, place,” Nathan agrees.

Audrey laughs not because it’s funny but because it’s good to hear them making the effort.

William scowls, balling up the t shirt. “If you’re fool enough to leave so much of yourself lying around in here you deserve what you get,” he says, shoving the t shirt into Audrey’s hands.

Audrey swallows hard. “Nathan bled a lot back in the cave,” she points out. “Is that something we need to worry about?”

“That’s under a dozen feet of rubble and isn’t soaked into a very convenient carrying vessel,” he answers.

Nathan catches her gaze, eyebrows lifted in mute question. Audrey shrugs, she doesn’t know if William’s telling the truth, but she stuffs the t shirt in her pack.

“I don’t recognize this place,” Audrey tells William.

“No. You wouldn’t. The caves carried us away from the patch we came through. There’s another one through those woods,” he inclines his head to indicate the forest behind them.

“How do you know?” Nathan demands. “Thought you couldn’t tell where one started.”

“I know because I made this one,” William huffs with exaggerated patience.

None of them have anything to say to that. Nathan and Duke exchange worried looks.

“Let’s go,” William orders. “It’s not safe.”

Audrey doesn’t ask why this area in particular isn’t safe when everything in the void wants to kill them. She’s got an idea. It’s not one she likes. It also doesn’t feel safe being out in the open like this either. So she shoulders her pack and heads for the woods.

She catches light glinting off of something twice before she stops them with a hand on Nathan’s arm.

“It’s in there,” she warns William. They’re not far from the woods, maybe twenty feet, she can’t pin down what the light is reflecting off of though.

“What is?” Duke asks from the rear of their party.

“The mirror creature,” Audrey answers, heart in her shoes. She’s so tired. She just wants to go home. “It’s been hunting us since before the cave.”

“Yes,” William admits, defeat in his shoulders.

“What mirror creature?” Nathan demands.

“A simulacrum,” William answers, sending a shudder down Audrey’s spine. “I’d hoped our little shortcut would give something else a chance to distract it. There’s nothing to do now but make a run for it. The entrance to the patch is about a mile into these woods. It can’t follow us in there. We should be able to make it,” he pauses, looks back at them, at Duke specifically. “Keep your Crocker on his leash, Audrey. We don’t need an evil mirror version of him trying to kill us all,” he warns.

“That what happens?” Nathan demands, taking a step closer to Duke.

“I hope whatever your darkest fears about yourself are Wuornos, that they’re easily allayed and not deeply rooted,” William snarks.

Audrey shifts her grip to Nathan’s hand, gives it a squeeze to remind him that punching William for being a sarcastic bastard will not get them out of the void any time soon. Or maybe it’s to remind herself of that fact.

A mile.

One lousy mile.

FBI Trainees have to run a mile and a half in twelve minutes to complete the course at Quantico.

Audrey Parker ran hers in nine minutes and fifty-three seconds.

They can do this. They can outrun this creature for less than ten minutes.

Audrey and Nathan let William take the lead again, holding back to fall into step with Duke. Audrey on his left, Nathan on his right.

Duke rolls his eyes but says nothing.

The ground they cross is soft, loosely packed dirt that Audrey’s heels sink into regularly. It’s just the kind of soil you’d expect growing things to bloom out of, bushes and flowers and whatever else that’s green. But the trees are mostly bare, their branches clawing toward that sickly orange sky make her think again of skeletons unnaturally wrought.

The empty branches should make it easier to see for greater distances. But she still can’t spot the mirror thing, the simulacrum. Of course, it’s a mirror, it reflects it's surroundings. She can’t even lie to herself that it’s probably gone. She knows it’s in there. Waiting for them.

“Well boys,” she says on the very edge of the woods. “If you think you’ve done enough running through a hellscape here don’t ever join the FBI. I think the training program at Quantico was even worse than this.”

“HPD’s fitness course is no cake walk, either,” Nathan defends loyally.

They both look to Duke.

He holds up his hands. “I don’t run unless it’s necessitated by circumstance,” he gives a smug little smirk that is totally for their benefit but Audrey will take it. “Besides, yoga,” he wags his finger at them, “is excellent cardio vascular exercise,” he finishes with an air of superiority that makes Audrey grin. Nathan’s offended squawk makes her grin wider.

And maybe the banter is a little off, none of them are hitting the notes right but they’re trying. They’re all trying so hard to keep it together for each other.

 

They don’t run through the woods. It’d be so easy to run right into the simulacrum. They walk, though it grinds every nerve in Audrey’s body to the finest of edges. Every snapped twig, every rustled leaf has her checking over her shoulder.

Her nerves are strung so tight that she almost screams right out loud when she spots the face. It's not the mirror creature. It's... it's something else. Duke spots it a moment after, his arms come out to hold her and Nathan back.

William laughs at them. "Old Fred here can't hurt a fly anymore," he assures them with a grin.

She notes that he still gives the face a wide berth. Audrey, Nathan and Duke stop and stare. It's almost as awful as the stags outside Croatoan's house. It has to be the root of a fallen tree, it's moss covered and taller than Nathan and Duke, the face protruding from it is at least half as tall and looks like someone, some giant someone was trapped behind the bark and kept trying to push its way out. Audrey shudders, wrapping her fingers around Duke's arm to drag it down. This thing's not a threat. She squeezes his hand before letting him go. Duke gives her an answering press. She takes a few steps around and has the unsettling impression that the eyes are following her.

"C'mon," Nathan encourages and she knows he feels it too.

They pick up the pace.

“Almost there,” William calls a few minutes later, Audrey’s amazed to hear his voice crack  with relief. He clears his throat. “Should be right over this ridge,” he drawls, steadier now, already scrambling up the rise.

She isn’t in the least surprised to see a glint of light flash over the tree trunk in front of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  The face in the fog. taken by [Juan Ignacio Llana Ugalde](https://www.flickr.com/photos/32346098@N07/)
> 
> Got a favourite part? I'd love to hear about it. :)


	17. The Mirror Creature

 She doesn’t turn around, grabs Duke’s arm so he doesn’t either.

“William,” she calls low and urgent. “It’s here.”

She watches his shoulders stiffen, sees him give the barest glance over his shoulder.

“Take a couple steps to your left,” he advises, voice calm and quiet.

They all do.

Audrey glances at Nathan, wonders if he’s thinking of the how to deal with a bear training you have to sit through when you join the HPD. No eye contact, back away slowly, walk, don’t run. Audrey would rather deal with the bear at this point.

At least with the bear all she has to worry about is getting eaten.

“Listen very carefully,” William tells them. “I’m going to turn around. If I’m looking at it then it can’t move and if it can’t reflect me it can’t catch me.” William announces. “When I do the three of you need to split up and try to get over the ridge.”

Audrey looks up, it’s not a steep climb, and they’re practically at the base of the slope. Nathan and Duke have long legs, Audrey knows she’s fast. It’s definitely something they can accomplish.

“Whatever you do don’t look at it. If you’re looking at it then it can catch you,” William warns.

“Can we smash it?” Nathan demands.

“Don’t even think about it if it’s caught somebody,” William growls. “You’ll let it out.”

“What can we do?” Audrey hates having to depend on William for information.

“Run.” William commands, turning on the spot.

 

Audrey doesn’t know what she was expecting when he said that, but it certainly wasn’t for Nathan to turn and run back toward the creature.

“Nathan!” she shouts, fear and fury burning in her veins. Of all the stupid, self-sacrificing things to do!

Duke turns at her yell and starts after his friend.

“Go!” Nathan urges them, swooping down and grabbing a fallen branch. This idiot thinks he can break the thing and save them all, Audrey realizes. He’s going to get himself grabbed!

Audrey bowls into Nathan knocking him off course and Duke plows into them a second later. They all three go sprawling in the leaves.

“It’s like you’re trying to get eaten,” William yells holding his ground, he keeps his eyes over their heads and to their left and Audrey does her best to keep her gaze anywhere but there as she gets to her knees dusting herself off.

“It doesn’t want me!” Nathan shouts as Duke hauls him to his feet.

“Did you forget the part where you died in here and everything went to hell back home?” Duke shakes him.

Even as Nathan shrugs, Duke’s eyes go wide.

“Audrey!” he exclaims, dropping Nathan’s arm and rushing towards her.

“Parker!” Nathan adds his voice to the clamor, blue eyes panicked.

The mirror creature! Audrey spins on her heel prepared to run and finds herself face to face with the simulacrum. Time itself seems to stretch out in that long, cold moment. Duke’s hand is an inch away from reflecting in the mirror, grabbing for her. She’s opening her mouth to yell at him to get back, stop, something, when the connection slams into place, like a hook behind her navel, sharp and cold and painful, paralyzing her limbs, freezing her into place.

Audrey can’t move, can’t speak, even her thoughts feel frozen, slow and creeping.

It’s William who snatches Duke at the last moment when Nathan can’t get to him. William who hauls him out of harm’s way.

“Last thing we need is to let your worse half out,” he snarls at Duke.

“It’s not after me! It’s after Audrey!” Duke shouts, frustration and fear and desperation painfully obvious in his tone. He’s holding nothing back, Duke with his carefully phrased everything, putting his emotions on display in front of William because he can’t keep them back. Audrey’s heart breaks that he’d throw himself in front of this creature _for her_ , even after everything that’s happened between them.

It wouldn’t have worked even if he had though.

The simulacrum, wasn’t after Duke.

It’s here for her.

She’s known that in her gut all along. It’s been coming for her. Maybe since she set foot in this godforsaken place.

 

The boulder isn’t flat or smooth, nor is it as tall as she is in one straight piece but the creature in the mirror isn’t broken or shortened or widened; it’s a perfect copy, a mirror image standing inside the rock, smirking out at her.

Audrey feels the thrall of the creature, the drag of it in her stomach, in her muscles, in her very bones. The hold it has on her is a creeping cold spreading out from behind her navel, seeping through muscle and sinew and veins. She’s only ever felt cold like this once before; during the split when she had been at the end of her rope, clinging to existence by her fingernails. It expands even as she becomes aware of it, stealing away her warmth.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” her mirror image says, grinning from ear to ear, so pleased with itself.  

The shudder that sparks works its way through the paralysis holding her limbs still. She’s got to turn away, to run, to scream, something, but she can’t.

“Audrey Prudence Parker,” the thing in the mirror singsongs in her voice. Her voice. At least Mara, Sarah, Lexie, they’d all sounded different, accent, intonation. It’s stolen even that. The thing in the mirror taps it's’ fingers to the glass, trapped just as she is but with a smug smile curling on its face.

“But that’s not who you really are is it?” the thing in the mirror continues, all sweetness and light on its lips, something dark and dangerous in the blue eyes. A shiver rocks Audrey’s limbs, her lizard brain recognizes this threat, is trying so hard to get her to flee. The cold creeps up toward her rib cage, down past her hips.

The thing in the glass smirks. “No,” it smiles, wide and pleased with her reaction. “That’s not who you are. You’re me.” It says simply, palms pressed to the glass, already seeking a way out.

She’s not. She knows she’s not but her lips won’t form the words, her throat won’t make the sounds. And still the cold keeps slithering onward, spreading now up her rib cage, into the long bones of her thighs.

“She’s definitely not you!” Nathan says hotly from somewhere over her shoulder.

Audrey could cry. He’s there. He’s still there. Why doesn’t he run? She can see Duke struggling against William behind the boulder and her heart sinks because there’s no one to pull Nathan away if Duke’s incapable. He shouldn’t be here. He doesn’t need to hear this.

The thing in the mirror laughs. “Of course she is, I’m her mirror after all. Your reflection can be no more and no less than what you are,” it says reasonably, just the facts. “I’m all the parts of her, even the ones she doesn’t want you to see,” the mirror brags with a Mara smirk. Behind the boulder Audrey sees Duke go stiff at the tone, he recognizes it too.  “The dark parts. The parts that make you wish for that weak, clingy, soft, fractured version of Audrey Parker you had before Charlotte combined them. Too bad she wasn’t real, huh, Nathan?” the thing in the glass teases. Audrey is actually a little grateful she can’t see Nathan’s reaction. She’s had that thought herself. Nathan’s a protective person, she couldn’t help but wonder if he doesn’t miss the more fragile version of herself that needed taking care of. The mirror’s still talking, the cold still creeping: down to her knees, up to her ribs, freezing her slowly from the inside out.

“We knew,” the mirror says, “we knew all along she wasn’t real, wasn’t whole.”

That’s true. She hates it but it’s true. She hates even more that this thing is just laying that out for them all to hear.

“She hated it y’know,” the thing nods to Audrey but is still talking to Nathan. “She hated being so weak but she wouldn’t admit she was. Refused to admit she was missing that spark, that little touch of wickedness that had been Mara all along. And you missed it too. Missed it almost as much as feeling her touch,” the thing in the mirror trails its finger down the glass suggestively. “You’d never admit that, I know,” it drawls. “She’d never admit that-- but I can.” It slams its fists against the glass.

Audrey doesn’t know how she knows but she does; it’s testing for cracks.

She holds her breath and only lets it out when none form.

The cold keeps spreading though; it’s creeping down toward her knees now and edging up towards her heart. It’s harder and harder to think past what the thing’s saying, to hold on to what she knows is true.

“I’m the part that can admit, I don’t give a shit about the Troubled, what I’m really in it for is the rush, it’s such a power trip talking them down, making them look at me like I’m their savior. Savior,” the thing in the mirror laughs in delight.

Audrey cringes at hearing Croatoan’s words coming from the creature’s mouth.

“That’s not why she does it!” Nathan argues for her.

“Isn’t it though?” the thing asks with a satisfied little smirk.

“She’s not in it for the thanks!” Nathan scoffs, sarcastic on the thanks and gives Audrey a little shot of warmth. Who the hell thanks them? No one wants to hear their family is Troubled.

“Do you know what her biggest fear is?” the creature taunts, steamrolling right over Nathan’s protests. Audrey feels the cold creep higher, her thundering heart doing nothing to keep it back. “The one she keeps buried deep inside that she’d never admit to anyone? She’s afraid she’ll succeed. She’s afraid she’ll cure all the Troubles and no one will need her anymore.” The thing tosses its head back and laughs while Audrey’s cheeks burn with shame. She’s had that thought, she has. She knows Nathan would still love her but would that be enough? Without their work tying them together? What would her life be like without a purpose?

“Parker?”  Nathan sounds so… he sounds sorry for her.

Audrey bristles at the sympathy and the indignation is like a faded ember. She struggles to hold onto it but it’s hard and everything is so cold and the mirror keeps talking.

“It’s true,” the thing in the mirror says, “they won’t need you anymore,” it hisses, turning its attention back to her on a nasty smile Audrey didn’t even know her face could make. “And Audrey Parker needs to be needed. Why do you think she chose you, Nathan, over Duke? You needed her more, poor little Troubled boy who can’t feel a thing but her,” its’ smile is all teeth.

That’s not true. It’s not! The cold is sweeping through her faster now, down to her feet and her fingertips. She can’t move and if she could she’d probably shatter like ice.

“It’s okay though, Audrey,” the mirror creature assures her. “I’m going to get out of here and when I do…we’ll put Mara to shame. We’ll raze your town. All those whiners; boohoo I have supernatural abilities, boohoo I can control the weather, I can make people like me," the mirror mocks. "We’ll give them something to cry about,” it promises. “And we’ll enjoy it. Watching them crawl, watching them beg. We’ll have plenty of purpose then.”

No, Audrey thinks. No! She feels something then, something besides the cold. The mirror has made a misstep with this threat. Anger starts to trickle in, seeping into the ice. It’s not the first thing to threaten her town, her people and she’s had more than enough of that.

“We’ll need more aether, but our good dog Duke will get that for us. Won’t you, Duke?” it calls, raising its eyes to sweep the area. It compounded its mistake by threatening Duke. Audrey’s anger grows sharper, warmer melting more of the ice. She looks for Duke past the boulder but he and William have disappeared.

“You think that’s not what she wants?” the thing asks Nathan. “Charlotte combined Audrey and Mara, she didn’t get rid of Mara,” the thing in the mirror reminds him on a laugh.

“You’re right,” Nathan agrees, voice quiet and certain.

Audrey knows that tone. It’s his puzzle solving tone, an answer he knows. She has one brief, terrifying moment of doubt, colder than anything the creature has been able to throw at her because it’s _real_.

But then Nathan continues and the ice in her veins cracks, warmth pouring through at his words.

“She _combined_ them,” he emphasizes. “So they’re in balance. All of Mara’s personality – her daring, her cunning, it’s tempered by Audrey’s sensibility, her empathy. There’s no Mara to take over,” he scoffs. “She’s integrated, they’re _one_ person. 'N maybe we don’t all have a separate name for the parts of us we don’t like, the selfish parts, the parts that want to do things for the hell of it but we choose which aspects of ourselves to express. Our choices tell who we are. And she’s _chosen_ to be Audrey Parker. She’s chosen that being Audrey Parker means helping the Troubled, because she _can_ , because she sees things other people miss, she listens in ways most people don’t. She’s _chosen_ to help because they need it and she can, not for thanks- not been a lot of those. She’s _chosen_ to try and save all of Haven instead of standing idly by or whining ‘bout how unfair it is or running when she could and I’m damn well not going to stand here and let you make her think she’s less than, when her choices make her stronger than damn near everyone I know.”

Audrey didn’t know. She didn’t know he knew her that well. She’d worried his love for her had blinded him to her faults, that he’d think to blame it all on Mara. She should have known quiet, observant Nathan knew it all. And he loved her _for it_ , for having the faults and choosing to fight past them, not in spite of them.

“I know who you are, Audrey Parker,” Nathan says, and she can see him now in her peripheral vision, his face so serious and earnest, just barely out of range of the mirror. “ _Know_ you, know the choices you’d make, person you want to be. Damn proud to call that person my partner. You’re kind when you don’t have to be. You listen. Got a god-awful sense of humor, you’re terrible with people who aren’t Troubled but you keep trying. You believe in yourself. You don’t hide or lie or cover up, pretend to be anything you’re not. More’n that you believe in doing the right thing. Don’t have any doubt in who you are, Parker. This fun house thing? Doesn’t even come close”

Nathan’s right. Mara’s selfish? Audrey’s responsible. If the whole damn town is hers then she’s going to take care of it. Mara’s cunning and manipulative? Audrey needs to be observant and yeah sometimes she’s got to manipulate people for the greater good. They’re integrated and she gets to choose who she is now. And every day since she's chosen to protect, to help, to heal; things Mara couldn’t understand but Audrey does. And she damn well couldn’t imagine making any other choice.

The reflection wavers. It feels like the connection is sloughing off, thawing like a frozen river in the spring, swift deep currents carving through the middle, melting the ice to slush, to water. The creature in the mirror pales, goes ghostly translucent and furious with it. Audrey feels the triumphant grin on her own face, not reflected anywhere in the mirror.  

Something nudges her hand, something real. Audrey can see it in the mirror. A branch, the branch Nathan had picked up earlier.

Her fingers fight to close around it, slowly like her knuckles are still unfreezing. It’s rough and solid in her grasp. It feels good, feels real in her hand. She drags her gaze away from the creature’s; pointedly glances to the branch in her grasp. She sees her own eyes go wide in surprise, horror dawning on her face as the thing in the mirror realizes it’s going to lose.

Audrey smiles, wide and free as she hurls herself away from facing the creature and slams the branch into the mirror, cracking it wide. She hears glass shattering on the other three sides: one after the other, after the other. When she looks up there’s Nathan a branch in his hand on her left, Duke on her right, even William’s on the far side cracking away at the simulacrum. The tinkle of breaking glass fills the forest for long moments.

 

Finally Audrey drops her branch and braces her hands on her knees, breathing heavy, light headed but fully herself, no one else in there.

And then Nathan’s in front of her, warm hands on her shoulders, her neck, her face, frantically checking her over.

"You're so cold, Parker," He worries, palms pressed to her cheeks, trying to give her his warmth.

She shakes her head and sucks in a breath, smiles. “I’m fine," she tells him, laughter bubbling warm and relieved out of her throat. She flings her arms around him and he's solid and real, and she must be too because she _feels_ real and solid in his arms. "I’m me, Nathan, just me,” she laughs, giddy now for a totally different reason.

“Yeah you are, Parker,” he agrees, pulling her off her feet, arms banded so tightly around her ribs it’s hard to breathe but oh, it’s so good. He’s real and warm and he loves her for who she is. Audrey holds on just as tight, tunneling her fingers through his hair so she’s sure he can feel it. “Wasn’t worried,” he rumbles against the side of her head, breath so warm on her ear it makes her shiver. “Wasn’t even a little bit worried,” he repeats and Audrey laughs again.

“I could tell,” she answers, pulling away to kiss him soundly and his lips are even warmer, like walking into your living room after a long, cold winter day.

When he sets her on her feet again Audrey catches Duke’s gaze, his shoulders are practically at his ears again, radiating guilt.

“Duke-” she starts but he shakes his head, cuts her off.

“I’m sorry, Audrey. I thought it was going to go after Nathan. I never would’ve-”

“No, Duke,” Audrey grabs his hand. His fingers are cold and faintly trembling. “I thought the same thing,” she tries to reassure him, tries to lift the guilt.

But Duke squeezes her fingers, a brief apologetic press, and then lets her go. Puts distance between them in three large steps that Audrey doesn't know how to bridge.

Nathan catches his gaze and holds it for a moment. Duke inclines his head in reply. Nathan nods. There’s an entire conversation in those gestures that even now Audrey doesn’t quite know how to parse.

“Don’t look at me,” William drawls before anyone can say anything else. “I’m not apologizing. If you’d listened to me we’d have been out of here twenty minutes ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Mirror Creature  
>   
> (If you'd like to hear a bit more about the mirror creatures [I wrote a little bit about them for void-lore on tumblr](https://void-lore.tumblr.com/post/160373785702/mirror-creatures)
> 
> Got a favourite part? I'd love to hear about it! :)


	18. Leaving the Void

Audrey lets Duke scramble up the rise without comment after William’s not so subtle reminder. They don’t have time to deal with it now, they need to get out of here. They’ll be home soon. They’ll talk then. She adds it to the growing list with an internal eyeroll. _So much for doing things differently._ From the top of the hill Audrey can see shards of mirror scattered across the forest floor. They wink in the light. She turns, hurrying down the other side.

The land is a virulent mossy green and free of trees here, descending mildly onto an ash grey rock plateau, so smooth and uniform it might as well be a concrete parking lot, except parking lots with trees generally have islands of dirt for the trees to grow out of. Audrey's no gardener but the way they grow right up out of the stone like it was soil disturbs her. William waits at the base of the hill. He points to an island of trees to their left.

“That one, right there,” he tells her.

They look like all the other trees and Audrey wonders how he knows that’s the one but then a trunk on the edge of the grove lights up, orange embers glowing in all the crevices and cracks in the bark as if the tree is burning from the inside out. It continues to burn for another few seconds and then it winks out without a hint of smoke or even the faintest scent.

William smirks, probably at the expression on her face and Audrey closes her mouth and stalks onto the grey stone clearing. The ground is fine for the first three steps. One, two, the third produces an ear splitting crack that races across the clearing, spreading fissures breaking the rock, skittering and splitting the stone like glass.

“Wiliam!” Audrey shouts, even as Nathan and Duke call out in alarm.

“I don't know!” He shouts, passing her. “Just don’t slow down, and don’t fall in,” he advises over his shoulder, running for all he’s worth.

Audrey can feel her face fighting to show anger and exasperation all at once even as she picks up the pace. Each step makes the rifts ripple outward, spreading until the ground becomes a mosaic of grey stone patches and viscous red cracks. When Garland’s Trouble grew too big to control the cracks were random and scattered, these are not like that at all. The stone splits as if designed to do so, the pattern radiating out, larger and larger. The ground pops, and grates, and crumbles without warning. The cracks start off only as thick as a pencil but before she’s even halfway across they’re three inches wide and growing larger. The red underneath squirms and seethes, so that the land looks like it’s bleeding.

A widening bloody maw seeking to swallow them whole.

Audrey can feel her heartbeat pounding in her eyelid. She trips as the rock she’s on breaks into smaller pieces, almost over balances in her hurry to leap to the next but Duke grabs her arm just in time, hauling her upright.

“The most hardcore game of don’t step on a crack ever, huh?” he teases, voice light despite the worried set of his brows and the tight grip of his hands.

Their combined weight makes the cracks spread more quickly. Quicker than they realized. The rock they’re on just crumbles; dissolving like a lump of sugar dropped into hot coffee, even as Audrey jumps to the relative safety of the next one. It happens in a second. One moment Duke is standing on the stone, the next he’s dropping into empty space, his expression flickers from surprise to resignation to acceptance.

Audrey’s pounding heart stops. “Duke!” She shouts watching him plummet. Her heart doesn’t start again until he catches himself on the edge of the disintegrating stone.

Audrey lunges for him manages to grab hold of his sleeve, almost two hundred pounds of muscle dragging her down. It’s hopeless almost from the start, she has no leverage, doesn’t even have a good grip on him while the rock she’s standing on crumbles beneath her feet. All she has is fear and determination pounding through her veins.

“Audrey, let go!” Duke orders, artless panic in his voice, “I’ll pull you down too!” he sounds so scared, not for himself but for her.

“NO!” she tells him, angry and frightened. As if she could! As if she would!. “You’re not expendable, damnit, I told you that already!” she all but sobs, dragging him up a scant inch. Her nails sink into the down of his sleeve. Nathan stretches in from nowhere to grab Duke’s free arm. Audrey could cry in relief when he does.

“Get back! Get Audrey back!” Duke orders Nathan but Nathan ignores him, face set in concentration.

The muscles in Audrey’s arms strain. The rock Duke was clinging to splinters, smaller and smaller. Their feet kick away bits of the surrounding stones as they tug. Nathan’s face goes red with the effort. It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s like he’s stuck or something, like the Void itself won't let him go. Audrey isn't letting it have him. With one last arm-wrenching pull they haul Duke up until he’s got enough leverage to kick his way free, the three of them almost go sprawling as he reaches the surface. She and Duke trip the last four feet onto the slim protection of the tree roots. Nathan is the last to make the jump, Duke and Audrey grab him with fists in his coat, hauling him the last few inches. The land here seems to be solid at least, the roots must go deep to tie it all together.

“Are you okay?”

“You alright?”

She and Duke babble over each other but Nathan is white as a sheet, hand clenched in Duke’s coat.

“The hell was that?” he demands.

“Nathan,” Duke tries to calm him down but Nathan is having none of that.

“The hell do you get off demanding that we leave you?” Nathan shouts. “Like you don’t matter? Like it wouldn’t--” Nathan falters, face red with emotion, “wouldn’t wreck us to leave you?” Nathan shakes Duke like a terrier with a rat, hard and furious. “Don’t ever ask me to do that again,” he growls.

Duke looks completely taken aback at Nathan’s words and the volume they’re being broadcast at.

“Nate, I’m sor--” he tries, placating and insincere but Nathan isn’t even listening, he’s dragging Duke into him, wrapping his arms around Duke and holding on like he can keep him safe through force of will alone.

Audrey watches as he buries his face in the crook of Duke’s neck, swallows down the lump in her throat, puts a hand on both their shoulders.

Before anything else can happen William grabs Audrey by the arm, pulls her away.

“We don’t have time for hysterical reunions,” he growls. “I don’t know how long we’ll be safe here,” he warns, then points to something beside her ear.

Audrey turns and spots the aether oozing like sap out of the tree behind her. Even with the incentive of the groaning land she still needs a moment to steel herself to collect it. She watches it spread along her palm with trepidation. This is what made Croatoan go mad. This is what Mara killed for. The power of it drove them down the paths they took but she can’t blame the aether, it’s a tool like any other. They each made their own choices how to use it, what to do with it. She’s got her own choices to make now. Each choice takes you further on the path of who you become. She’s not going to follow in their footsteps.

She takes a breath, strengthens her will and steps into the dark patch, crystal held high. She is not Mara. She is not Croatoan. A glance to the side shows her she has something they did not have. Duke and Nathan are with her; they will not let her get lost in the dark.

\-----

When they come out on the other side they step onto the sticky grey mud she remembers from yesterday. In the distance hangs the red banner of Duke’s bandana.

Audrey steps onto the open plain, blinking in the light. Her eyes catch on the bandana and her feet stop moving all on their own. She can feel her heartbeat in her throat, it’s pounding. Nathan steps up on one side of her, Duke on the other. They’re both wearing concerned looks but it’s Nathan who speaks.

“You okay, Parker?” he asks.

Audrey nods. “Yeah,” she tries to say but her voice wobbles. She takes a breath and tries again. “We’re going home.”

“To no coffee and recycled water,” Nathan points out.

Audrey laughs. “You’re always such a ray of sunshine, Wuornos,” she smiles and shoves him lightly. Nathan smiles back, wide and hopeful.

William clears his throat behind them. “Not to break up the party,” he drawls, “but I do believe it’s time for the double cross. You promised me out of here, I promised to lead you to the crystal. We both knew you weren’t really going to let me out of here so now-“

Audrey surprises them all, even herself, by pulling her ring on its chain over her head. She holds it out to William.

“You don’t belong here anymore, either,” she tells him and means it. She’s no longer angry with him. No longer vengeful. If anything she’s sad. She puts the ring in his hand that’s rough from surviving in the void for so long. “Go home, William,” she instructs, closing his fingers around it. She ignores the tremble in his hands and makes her eyes go hard.  “If we see you in Haven we’re not going to lock you up,” she warns.

William chuckles.

Behind him the thinny flares to green life, casting strange shadows across the muddy plain. Hope surges in Audrey’s chest.

William steps aside and gestures them forward. “After you,” he offers.

Audrey hesitates, turns back to William not sure if to say anything, maybe he knows already and she’s just wasting her breath. Still, it’s entirely possible he won’t use this thinny, he might know of a dozen others here and she’s willing to bet he’s probably going to stick around and gather more aether to take home

“The void… it’s collapsing in on itself, William." She can feel it. "Don’t wait too long to use that thing.”

William shakes his head. “I’m right behind you,” he assures her.

Audrey holds out her hands to Nathan and Duke.

“Ready to go home?” she asks.

Nathan smiles and squeezes her hand.

“As I’ll ever be,” Duke agrees, taking her other hand.

\-----

They set off across the plain at a brisk pace, mud squelching unpleasantly beneath their boots. They can see the thinny, green and shimmering, see the flag of Duke’s bandana red and waving gently in the breeze coming from the doorway. They can’t seem to come any closer to either.

Audrey glances quickly behind her, no. They haven’t made any progress. She sees Nathan turn as well.

Duke takes a giant step forward but he’s still in line with them.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me!” William groans.

“What’s happening?” Nathan demands, all out running, the mud splashing up behind him, but their flag doesn’t get any closer. He’s still in line with them.

“It’s like this god forsaken hell hole won’t just let us leave!” Duke shouts the last four words, impatience and aggravation.

“That is exactly it,” William says, defeat in his voice and shoulders. He hangs his head, hands fisted at his sides.

“No,” Audrey declares. “No!” she shouts. “You can’t keep us here!” she announces to the void at large. She has had enough. She has had _more_ than enough. She has almost died at least fifty times in the last two days. She has seen the most horrific things she will probably never be able to forget. She has almost lost Duke and Nathan too many times to count. She stabbed a man in the neck! She is dirty, she is muddy, she is tired and hungry and she is forty-five freaking feet from going home. “NO! Not happening! We are leaving! Now!”

Nathan grabs their arms, running faster now, panting. Audrey runs too because what else can she do? And still the flag stays just where it is. The thinny flickers for a moment and then flares back to life shooting a bright, cold, spark of panic right down Audrey’s spine.

She turns her gaze on their flag, glares at it, watches the breeze flick it here and there. The same breeze wafts across her face, cool and smelling of the sea, smelling of _home._

“It’s not real,” she blurts out, even as the realization dawns on her.

“What?” Duke demands.

“It’s not real! We’re moving! We’ve been here before. This didn’t happen then! It’s not real! We’ve got to be almost there. Come on!” she encourages and just like that the illusion snaps.

They’re three steps away from the thinny. She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t look back, doesn’t let go of Nathan or Duke’s hands. She drags them through on her heels; _leads them home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> William's ever burning tree  
>   
> Gleefully borrowed from [Christopher Jobson's Bioluminescent forest](http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/01/a-bioluminescent-forest-created-with-digital-projection-mapping/)
> 
> The cracks  
> 


	19. William

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @GreyHaven do not read this chapter (but you can read the end note)

William watches them go with a pang. He’s almost at a loss. For five hundred years his life has been about Mara, helping her, saving her, or surviving every awful thing the Void could throw at him to get back to her. Things aren’t going to be easy at home but they will be different than this. He opens his hand to stare at the ring in his palm and feels a smile stretch his cheeks.

Home.

It’s a good thought.

He takes a deep breath and prepares to step through the thinny, the ball of aether he collected while Audrey was digging herself out of the cave sits snug in his coat.

He never sees death coming. It takes him by surprise right there on the cusp of a new life. He doesn’t even have the chance to cry out. In a way it’s how he would have wanted it. Who needs to know how they’re going to die, after all?

William’s body drops. The ring spills out of his fingers, glinting in the weak sunlight.

Another hand plucks it from the muddy ground.

The man who holds the ring is not Joseph Cross. He is Croatoan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are, at the end of what for me has been an enormous undertaking. Talk about biting off more than I could chew. This story came in at twice the word count I was expecting and honestly is still going. There's an entire Epilogue to follow that's coming in around 20k and part 2 after that so Void Verse continues. I started writing this in May of 2016 and I'm still working in the verse, and before this I think my longest fic was something like 8k so yeah this? This is crazy for me. I have so many folk to thank for getting me through this. @kedreeva for loving void things and talking about them with me, @queenbookwench for whacking me with the comma stick, (I swear one of these days I'll use a semi colon on my own) @kaelsmiscellany for the races, but most especially, above all @jadzibelle for all the hand holding and flailing and kindness and patience, without her encouragement I definitely would never have finished this. 
> 
> I also need to thank you, the readers, I've treasured your feedback and kudos, your favourite parts and your consternation have inspired me to keep posting, made me smile and squee with joy and made me want to be better than I have been. Thank you for making sure I knew I wasn't shouting into the void, thank you for the response. Readers like you are what keep writers in ink and inspiration, you're invaluable to the craft. You can't be a storyteller if there's no audience to tell the story to after all. 
> 
> I hope you'll come back to Void Verse in two weeks when I post the Soft Epilogue (For they are good people my friends, and they deserve it) and later in the fall when I start posting part two. In the meantime I hope you enjoyed the story, thanks for coming along on the ride.


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